FIRST PRIEST.
Wine and beauty thus inviting,
Each to different joys exciting,
Whither shall my choice incline?
SECOND PRIEST.
I’ll waste no longer thought in choosing,
But, neither love nor wine refusing,
I’ll make them both together mine.
Recitative.
But whence, when joy should brighten o’er the land,
This sullen gloom in Judah’s captive band?
Ye sons of Judah, why the lute unstrung?
Or why those harps on yonder willows hung?
Come, take the lyre, and pour the strain along,
The day demands it; sing us Sion’s song,
Dismiss your griefs, and join our tuneful choir;
For who like you can wake the sleeping lyre?
SECOND PROPHET.
Chain’d as we are, the scorn of all mankind,
To want, to toil, and every ill consign’d—
Is this a time to bid us raise the strain,
Or mix in rites that Heaven regards with pain?
No, never! May this hand forget each art
That wakes to finest joys the human heart,
Ere I forget the land that gave me birth,
Or join to sounds profane its sacred mirth!
FIRST PRIEST.
Rebellious slaves! if soft persuasion fail,
More formidable terrors shall prevail.