Michael Drayton (1563–1631)

THAT instrument ne’er heard

Struck by the skilful bard

It strongly to awake,

But it the Internals scared

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

If first it did belong

To Greece, or if our own.

The Druidés imbrued

With gore on altars rude

With sacrifices crowned

In hollow woods bedewed,

Adored the trembling sound.