ODE ON ST. CECILIA'S DAY, MDCCVIII. AND OTHER PIECES FOR MUSIC. ODE FOR MUSIC ON ST. CECILIA'S DAY. I. DESCEND, ye Nine! descend and sing; The shrill echoes rebound: While in more lengthen'd notes and slow, The deep, majestic, solemn organs blow. Hark! the numbers soft and clear, Gently steal upon the ear; Now louder, and yet louder rise, And fill with spreading sounds the skies; Exulting in triumph now swell the bold notes, In broken air, trembling, the wild music floats; The strains decay, And melt away, In a dying, dying fall. II. By Music, minds an equal temper know, Or when the soul is press'd with cares, Warriors she fires with animated sounds; Pours balm into the bleeding lover's wounds: Morpheus rouses from his bed, Sloth unfolds her arms and wakes, List'ning Envy drops her snakes; Intestine war no more our Passions wage, And giddy Factions hear away their rage. III. But when our Country's cause provokes to Arms, So when the first bold vessel dar'd the seas, High on the stern the Thracian rais'd his strain, IV. But when thro' all th' infernal bounds, 25 30 35 45 50 Love, strong as Death, the Poet led O'er all the dreary coasts! Dreadful gleams, Dismal screams, Fires that glow, Shrieks of woe, Sullen moans, Hollow groans, And cries of tortur'd ghosts! But hark! he strikes the golden lyre; See, shady forms advance! Thy stone, O Sisyphus, stands still,' And the pale spectres dance! The Furies sink upon their iron beds, 70 And snakes uncurl'd hang list'ning round their heads. 0 V. By the streams that ever flow, O'er th' Elysian flow'rs; Restore, restore Eurydice to life: Oh take the husband, or return the wife! 1 This line is taken from an ode of Cobb.-WARTON. 75 80 He sung, and hell consented O'er death, and o'er hell, A conquest how hard and how glorious! With Styx nine times round her, VI. eyes: But soon, too soon, the lover turns his Now under hanging mountains, Beside the fall of fountains, Or where Hebrus wanders, Rolling in Mæanders, All alone, Unheard, unknown, And calls her ghost, 85 90 95 100 105 For ever, ever, ever lost! Now with Furies surrounded, Despairing, confounded, He trembles, he glows, Amidst Rhodope's snows; See, wild as the winds, o'er the desert he flies; 110 Hark! Hæmus resounds with the Bacchanals' cries Ah see, he dies! Yet ev'n in death Eurydice he sung, Eurydice still trembled on his tongue, |