That instrument ne'er heard
Struck by the skilful bard
It strongly to awake,
But it the Infernals seared
And made Olympus quake.
As those prophetic strings
Whose sounds with fiery wings
Drove fiends from their abode,
Touched by the best of kings,
That sung the holy ode.
So his when women slew
And it in Hebrus threw,
Such sounds yet forth it sent,
The banks to weep that drew
As down the stream it went.
And diversely though strong,
So anciently we sung
To it, that now scarce known
It first it did belong
To Greece, or if our own.
The Druides imbrued
With gore on altars rude
With sacrifices crowned
In hollow woods bedewed,
Adored the trembling sound.
