SONGS, &c.
N THE PROPHET; A COMIC OPERA.
Price SIX-PENCE.
THE AIRS, DUETTS, TRIOS AND CHORUSSES,
&c.
IN THE PROPHET; A COMIC OPERA, IN THREE ACTS; PERFORMED AT THE THEATRE-ROYAL, COVENT-GARDEN. The Musick partly selected from the Works of
Hayd'n, Purcell, Ployel, Anfossi, Cimaroso, Gretry, Giordani
and
Sacchini,
and partly composed by Mr. SHIELD; with a grand Overture by
Salieri.
LONDON: Printed for T. CADELL, in the Strand. 1788.
CHARACTERS.
Sultan,
Mr. BANNISTER.
Vizier,
Mr. RYDER.
Carlos,
Mr. JOHNSTONE.
Rathmud,
Mr. QUICK.
Selim,
Mr. EDWIN.
Lazarus,
Mr. BLANCHARD,
Heli,
Mr. BOOTH.
Farruknaz,
Mrs. BILLINGTON.
Ismene,
Mrs. MARTYR.
Amra,
Mrs. WEBB.
Mob, Mutes, Guards, &c.
SCENE,—
Constantinople.
*⁎*
The lines mark'd with inverted Commas are omitted in the Representation.
AIRS, DUETS, &c. IN THE PROPHET.
ACT I.
AIR I.—
ISMENE.
SWEET blushing flower! a while,
Breathe soft incense on the air,
Yet thy balmy dews distill,
And be the Gard'ner's pride and care!
Yet a little, charm the sense,
Yet a moment—fix the eye;
Then, for thy short pre-eminence,
Be ravish'd from thy stock and die!
AIR II.—
FARRUKNAZ.
DEAR native scenes, fair Seville's Towers,
That rear your antique spires so high,
Your awful groves and fragrant bowers
Fond memory traces with reverted eye;
And Hope, of all that train remaining
Which once gay youth and pleasure led,
At every pause of my complaining,
Points to your vales belov'd, and sacred shade.
" Haply beneath some crumbling ruin,
" Some dripping arch, or rifted tree,
" My Carlos lingers yet, renewing
" Vows of angelic love, and waits for me!
" There yet a while, sweet spirit hover!—
" I come, my holy vow to keep,
" I come to join my sainted lover;—
" And joy to die, who only live to weep.
AIR III.—
ISMENE.
THE heart which love has wounded,
By fear and death surrounded,
One only thought alarms;
It mocks the raging ocean,
The stormy winds commotion,
Or din of hostile arms:
Its wonted cares are banish'd,
Its early terrors vanish'd,
It pants with fears unknown,
Throbs with too fierce pulsation,
To mark the dull vibration,
That trembles with its own.
AIR IV.—
FARRUKNAZ.
" FROM Carmel's spicy groves, or where
" Stain'd with many a marty'rs blood,
" Old Kedron rolls his holy flood,
" To Sion Wall, the tomb of God,
" Pilgrims who precious reliques bear;—
" If sudden on the scorching sand
" The prowling Arab's felon band
" Round the fainting Camels stand,
" Some portion feel of my despair!
Who, by the fraud-avenging sea,
Are dash'd, upon some verdant Isle;
And worn with care, and spent with toil,
In sleep from thought escape awhile,
By some clear stream, or perfum'd tree;—
But wake to savage songs, and view
The feather'd chief, and sable crew,
And kindling fires on mountains blue,
May weep, and rage, and rave, like me!
AIR V.—
SULTAN.
THE God who form'd our wretched race,
In pity clos'd the book of Fate,
Forbad with impious search to trace
The ills—that all alike await.
Ah wherefore burst the friendly shade,
Which shuts the future from our sight;
And tear the veil, by mercy spread,
To shield us from a painful light!
Full soon shall Time, so seeming slow,
With noiseless steps his course fulfil,
And call to birth each destin'd woe,
Each embrio grief, and ripen'd ill.
AIR VI.—
VIZIER.
CHLOE, with all that Nature
Coud lend of loves and graces,
To deck each conqu'ring feature,
Or wanton in her tresses,
For twenty years, the nation
Had rul'd, with sway tyrannie,
'Till for her soul's salvation,
She lately felt a panic.
Unlike the Grecian Bully
That all the world had won, Sir,
Then wept so pitifully
Because there was but one, Sir,
She in the skies discovers
An Empire worth acquiring;
So quits her quitting lovers,
And flies from the retiring,
For now her form is waining,
And eyes begin to twinkle,
And all the Loves remaining,
Are Loves, that love a wrinkle—
Herself, a Pagan Goddess,
Into a saint she turns, Sir,
Nor longer for the bodies,
But souls of men, she burns, Sir.
So, lest her faith should fail her,
Or youthful sins might sink her,
She keeps a preaching Taylor,
And apostolic Tinker;
Who, to regeneration
May guide her and refresh her;—
In case too of temptation,
May struggle with the flesh, Sir.
AIR VII.—
ISMENE.
HAVE you not seen an Infant's prize,
In vain its snowy pinions beat,
That tipp'd with gold, and Tyrian dyes,
Are only guilty of its fate?
With cruel kindness, to her breast,
The thoughtless nymph her captive presies;
That tortur'd still, and still caress'd,
Breathes out its little life in kisses!
Such is, in faithful lines pourtray'd,
The story of the woes I prove;—
So wretched woman is betray'd
By beauty, and undone by love!
With cruel kindness, &c.
TRIO—AIR VIII.—
FARRUKNAZ, ISMENE,
and
SULTAN.
THINK not sorrow made for you!
The slaves of love are tortur'd too!
Eyer cruel, ever smiling,
Sill detected, still beguiling,
Cupid wreaths his chains with flowers,
And hides his rack in perfum'd bowers!
Chorus.
Think not sorrow, &c.
END OF FRST ACT.
ACT II.
AIR IX.—
CARLOS.
FAIR liberty! whom heaven gave
But where peculiarly it loves;
And put off all it meant for slave
With orange-bow'rs, and citron-groves!
The children of the frozen North,
Where nature half her gifts retains,
Are doom'd to tame the churlish earth,
For tasteless fruits, and tardy grains;
Yet while their weary task they ply,
By thee their fainting souls are cheer'd!
No stern unfeeling Lord is nigh,
No rods are seen, no chains are heard!
Still as they guide the delving plough,
Or bind pale Autumn's scanty store;
To thee, their manly lives they vow,
To thee, their grateful strains they pour!
RONDEAU—AIR X.—
CARLOS.
SWEET innocence has charms, to soothe
Each lawless thought, which love inspires,
And calms the fiery pulse of youth
With meek Devotion's pure desires!
To chasten, and refine, she knows,
Tumultuous wishes, burning sighs;
And turns the breath of eager vows
To incense, and to sacrifice!
AIR XI.—
AMRA.
TO be true to the man they admire,
Is a virtue, all women alike have—
When pleasure and duty conspire
Our conduct's as plain as a pike-staff:
But at once to detest, and be true too,
Another to love, and resist him,
Is on wives too tyranic a duty,
To be practised by Turk, or by Christian.
AIR XII.—
RATHMUD.
SEE the mutes!
Cruel brutes!
They seize me—
Round they fling
Hempen string,
And squeeze me!
While I weeze,
My decease
They quicken—
I flicker,
Much quicker
Than chicken.
You stand by
While I die.—
Then, bolder,
With your blade,
Cut my head
From shoulder▪
Down the stair-case
Kick my carcase,
In a hole:
And my noddle
Rides a straddle,
On a Pole.
TRIO—AIR XIII.—
LAZARUS, HELI, RATHMUD.
THO' Womansh and Wine be de blesshings of Laife,
Yet monish ish moche more delighting—
For, Dese are de caushes of quarrelsh and shtraife,
But for dis we can cheat vedout faighting.
If the blessings of life be but women, and wine!
Ne'er quarrel, but part them between us:
The joys of the rosy-cheek'd Bacchus be mine;
And do you take the pleasures of Venus.
To love and to drink, are the blessings of life,
When your wine than your mistress is older—
But so new is my wine, and so antique my wife,
My sole pleasure in drink, is to scold her.
The joys of the rosy-cheek'd Bachus be
thine
/
mine
And we'll part the money between us.
And do you take the pleasures of Venus.
AIR XIV.—
LAZARUS.
WHEN I wash a mighty little boy,
Heart-cakes I made, and peppermint-drops,
Wafers and sweet-chalk I us'd for to cry,
Alicompain, and nice Lollipops.
Nexsht I made rollers for de Macs,
To curl deir hair, 'twash very good—
Rosin I painted for shealing-wax,
And forg'd upon't
Wel brand en vast houd.
" Slippers for Inns I next learnt to stitch,
" Quicksilver balls I made, to make Brass-Buckles white,
" Then a snug box I took very near Houndsditch,
" And, Oh, how I us'd to melt plate every night!
" Of their Commissions, Officers I chouse,
" Tradesmen I swindle of every dimensions;
" I cheat every soul that come to my house,
" Parsons of their Livings, Widows of their Pensions.
Then to try my luck in de Alley I went,
But of dat I soon grew tir'd, or wiser—
Monish I lent at fifty per cent,
And wash I. H. in de Public Advertizer.
De nexsht thing I did, wash a spirited prank,
Which at a stroke my fortune made,
For I happen'd to write so like de Cashiers of de Bank,
De Clerks didn't know de difference, and de monish was paid.
So having sheated the Gentiles, as Moses commanded,
I began to tremble at every Gibbet I saw,
So I got on board a ship, and here I am landed,
In spite of Judges, Counsellors, Attorneys and Law.
AIR XV.—
SULTAN.
SAY, when the chast'ning hand of heaven requires
Of the torn breast, its better, dearer part;
Can Love, obedient, put out all his fires,
Or reason quell the pulse, and calm the heart?
" Will no fond passage linger in the mind,
" Nor tender words yet vibrate on the ear,
" Nor look nor gesture, leave its trace behind,
" The hand its pressure, nor its brine the tear?
No—In this bleeding vault of breathing earth,
Thy gracious image shall for aye, remain,
Or from its living cavern bursting forth
Glide thro' the chambers of my madding brain!
By heaven rejected and of thee bereav'd,
Madness or death must draw the shaft of fate.
My tortur'd sense must crack to be reliev'd,
My heart, to be at ease, must cease to beat.
AIR XVI.—
CARLOS.
IN each new scene of varied woes
My long-lost fair I find;
No picture of distress but shews
Her image to my mind—
No heart but
Her's,
appears to thrill,
No bosom heaves but
Her's,
And with
Her
form my terrors fill,
Each dress affliction wears.
AIR XVII.—
SULTAN,
WHAT cares surround a Monarch's brow,
And weigh the splendid sufferer down;
Known victim of each public woe—
And silent martyr of his own.
With the bright circle of a crown,
Around our temples, grief we bind;
And press beneath the royal gown
The vulture, that devours the mind.
For Us no social bosom heaves,
No sympathetic sorrows roll;
But faith, proscrib'd with friendship, leaves
A dreary solitude of soul—
The ills of life alone we taste,
Thus insulated from our race!
Preside with
Famine
at the
feast,
With
Misery
have the power to
bless.
END OF THE SECOND ACT.
ACT III.
AIR XVIII.—
FARRUKNAZ.
HOPE, treach'rous meteor, lucid vapour!
Ever flying,
Still belying
The village taper—
Wand'ring pilgrims—lone, benighted
Thy blue falsehood, pleas'd, descry;
See the cheerful faggot lighted,
Think the social cottage nigh.—
Lambent fire, deceive, but harm not;
Pallid gleam, relume, but warm not—
Light no error in my breast,
Sooth my weary soul, but charm not;
Unrelenting,
Unconsenting,
Swearing never to be bless'd—
AIR XIX.—
CARLOS.
THE smiling years, that pleasure leads,
Unmark'd, their placid tenor keep,
Ere yet the wounded bosom bleeds,
Or knows to wake and weep.
" But slow the ling'ring moments creep,
" And slow the flagging hour recedes;
" When taught by love, to wake and weep,
" The wounded bosom bleeds.
AIR XX.—
FARRUKNAZ.
SOMETIMES, 'tis said, the spirits of the blest
Float on the buoyant bosom of the air;
And watch with aid divine, the maid distrest,
The Hermit's wand'ring step, or midnight pray'r!
With pensile minstrelsy the heaven they fill—
With harps unseen the starry roofs resound;
While from their sacred extasies distill
Peace to each care, and Balm to every wound.
AIR XXI.—
FARRUKNAZ.
WHAT are the boasted joys of love!
By danger won, in fear possest,
There scarce is leisure in the breast,
Its wish'd-for state to prove!
How short the hours of bliss we know!
By toil forerun, by terror prest!
The heart was never truly blest,
That did not tremble too!—
DUO—
CARLOS
and
FARRUKNAZ.
" MERCY, sole right divine of Kings,
" Can all the toils of pow'r atone—
" And guards with wide-expanded wings,
" The righteous Prince, and lawful throne.
" For her the godlike Monarch bears,
" Oppress'd with public ills, to live—
" And finds a balm for Empire's cares,
" In the blest privilege—
to forgive.
" Who, of mankind's offending race
" At heaven's chancery shall appear,
" His conscious judge see face to face,
" The accuser of his bosom hear?
" Yet mercy, tender seraph, still
" Pleads the
general human cause
;
" By tears she melts the heavenly will;
" By tears, the fix'd eternal laws.
" To Her we bend, in Her we trust,
" Thro' whom the best must be forgiven—
" Sublime mysterious Maid! more just
" Than justice, and more kind than Heaven.
FINALE—AIR XXII.—
FARRUKNAZ.
IF glory charm the hero's soul
By godlike virtue won!
Spread wide his high renown
As winds can waft, or waters roll!
CHORUS.
Long, happy, great, and wise,
Rule o'er mankind, and late attain the skies!
A nation's vows, blest insence, rise
Before the heavenly throne—
By wafting ages blown
Their curling volume to the skies.
CHORUS.
Long, happy, &c.
Deaf to the priest, or tyrant's pray'rs,
Heav'n, when a people kneels,
By mighty works reveals,
It has no favorite but theirs.
CHORUS.
Long, happy, &c.
THE END▪