Eighteenth-Century Audio

Source: PennSound Classics.
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Source: PennSound Classics. Download link 

Stella this day is thirty-four,
(We shan’t dispute a year or more:)
However, Stella, be not troubled,
Although thy size and years are doubled,
Since first I saw thee at sixteen,
The brightest virgin on the green;
So little is thy form declin’d;
Made up so largely in thy mind.

Oh, would it please the gods to split
Thy beauty, size, and years, and wit;
No age could furnish out a pair
Of nymphs so graceful, wise, and fair;
With half the lustre of your eyes,
With half your wit, your years, and size.
And then, before it grew too late,
How should I beg of gentle Fate,
(That either nymph might have her swain,)
To split my worship too in twain

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Source: PennSound Classics. Download link 

The Farmer’s Goose, who in the Stubble,
Has fed without Restraint, or Trouble;
Grown fat with Corn and Sitting still,
Can scarce get o’er the Barn-Door Sill:
And hardly waddles forth, to cool
Her Belly in the neighb’ring Pool:
Nor loudly cackles at the Door;
For Cackling shews the Goose is poor.

But when she must be turn’d to graze,
And round the barren Common strays,
Hard Exercise, and harder Fare
Soon make my Dame grow lank and spare:
Her Body light, she tries her Wings,
And scorns the Ground, and upward springs,
While all the Parish, as she flies,
Hear Sounds harmonious from the Skies.

Such is the Poet, fresh in Pay,
(The third Night’s Profits of his Play;)
His Morning-Draughts ’till Noon can swill,
Among his Brethren of the Quill:
With good Roast Beef his Belly full,
Grown lazy, foggy, fat, and dull:
Deep sunk in Plenty, and Delight,
What Poet e’er could take his Flight?
Or stuff’d with Phlegm up to the Throat,
What Poet e’er could sing a Note?
Nor Pegasus could bear the Load,
Along the high celestial Road;
The Steed, oppress’d, would break his Girth,
To raise the Lumber from the Earth.

But, view him in another Scene,
When all his Drink is Hippocrene,
His Money spent, his Patrons fail,
His Credit out for Cheese and Ale;
His Two-Year’s Coat so smooth and bare,
Through ev’ry Thread it lets in Air;
With hungry Meals his Body pin’d,
His Guts and Belly full of Wind;
And, like a Jockey for a Race,
His Flesh brought down to Flying-Case:
Now his exalted Spirit loaths
Incumbrances of Food and Cloaths;
And up he rises like a Vapour,
Supported high on Wings of Paper;
He singing flies, and flying sings,
While from below all Grub-street rings

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With a whirl of thought oppressed,
I sunk from reverie to rest.
A horrid vision seized my head,
I saw the graves give up their dead!
Jove, armed with terrors, bursts the skies,
And thunder roars and lightning flies!
Amazed, confused, its fate unknown,
The world stands trembling at his throne!
While each pale sinner hangs his head,
Jove, nodding, shook the heavens, and said:
‘Offending race of human kind,
By nature, reason, learning, blind;
You who, through frailty, stepped aside;
And you who never fell—through pride:
You who in different sects have shammed,
And come to see each other damned;
(So some folks told you, but they knew
No more of Jove’s designs than you)
The world’s mad business now is o’er,
And I resent these pranks no more.
I to such blockheads set my wit!
I damn such fools!—Go, go, you’re bit’

Source: PennSound Classics.Text.
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Source: PennSound Classics.
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What beck’ning ghost, along the moon-light shade
Invites my steps, and points to yonder glade?
‘Tis she!–but why that bleeding bosom gor’d,
Why dimly gleams the visionary sword?
Oh ever beauteous, ever friendly! tell,
Is it, in heav’n, a crime to love too well?
To bear too tender, or too firm a heart,
To act a lover’s or a Roman’s part?
Is there no bright reversion in the sky,
For those who greatly think, or bravely die?

Why bade ye else, ye pow’rs! her soul aspire
Above the vulgar flight of low desire?
Ambition first sprung from your blest abodes;
The glorious fault of angels and of gods;
Thence to their images on earth it flows,
And in the breasts of kings and heroes glows.
Most souls, ’tis true, but peep out once an age,
Dull sullen pris’ners in the body’s cage:
Dim lights of life, that burn a length of years
Useless, unseen, as lamps in sepulchres;
Like eastern kings a lazy state they keep,
And close confin’d to their own palace, sleep.

From these perhaps (ere nature bade her die)
Fate snatch’d her early to the pitying sky.
As into air the purer spirits flow,
And sep’rate from their kindred dregs below;
So flew the soul to its congenial place,
Nor left one virtue to redeem her race.

But thou, false guardian of a charge too good,
Thou, mean deserter of thy brother’s blood!
See on these ruby lips the trembling breath,
These cheeks now fading at the blast of death:
Cold is that breast which warm’d the world before,
And those love-darting eyes must roll no more.
Thus, if eternal justice rules the ball,
Thus shall your wives, and thus your children fall;
On all the line a sudden vengeance waits,
And frequent hearses shall besiege your gates.
There passengers shall stand, and pointing say,
(While the long fun’rals blacken all the way)
“Lo these were they, whose souls the furies steel’d,
And curs’d with hearts unknowing how to yield.
Thus unlamented pass the proud away,
The gaze of fools, and pageant of a day!
So perish all, whose breast ne’er learn’d to glow
For others’ good, or melt at others’ woe.”

What can atone (oh ever-injur’d shade!)
Thy fate unpitied, and thy rites unpaid?
No friend’s complaint, no kind domestic tear
Pleas’d thy pale ghost, or grac’d thy mournful bier.
By foreign hands thy dying eyes were clos’d,
By foreign hands thy decent limbs compos’d,
By foreign hands thy humble grave adorn’d,
By strangers honour’d, and by strangers mourn’d!
What though no friends in sable weeds appear,
Grieve for an hour, perhaps, then mourn a year,
And bear about the mockery of woe
To midnight dances, and the public show?
What though no weeping loves thy ashes grace,
Nor polish’d marble emulate thy face?
What though no sacred earth allow thee room,
Nor hallow’d dirge be mutter’d o’er thy tomb?
Yet shall thy grave with rising flow’rs be drest,
And the green turf lie lightly on thy breast:
There shall the morn her earliest tears bestow,
There the first roses of the year shall blow;
While angels with their silver wings o’ershade
The ground, now sacred by thy reliques made.

So peaceful rests, without a stone, a name,
What once had beauty, titles, wealth, and fame.
How lov’d, how honour’d once, avails thee not,
To whom related, or by whom begot;
A heap of dust alone remains of thee,
‘Tis all thou art, and all the proud shall be!

Poets themselves must fall, like those they sung,
Deaf the prais’d ear, and mute the tuneful tongue.
Ev’n he, whose soul now melts in mournful lays,
Shall shortly want the gen’rous tear he pays;
Then from his closing eyes thy form shall part,
And the last pang shall tear thee from his heart,
Life’s idle business at one gasp be o’er,
The Muse forgot, and thou belov’d no more!

Source: PennSound Classics. Download link 

Source: PennSound. Text
Download link 

Source: PennSound Classics. Download link