English Poetry I: From Chaucer to Gray.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14.
John Dryden
264. Song for St. Cecilia’s Day
1687F
This universal frame began:
When Nature underneath a heap
Of jarring atoms lay
And could not heave her head,
The tuneful voice was heard from high,
‘Arise, ye more than dead!’
Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry
In order to their stations leap,
And Music’s power obey.
This universal frame began:
From harmony to harmony
Through all the compass of the notes it ran,
The diapason closing full in Man.
When Jubal struck the chorded shell
His listening brethren stood around,
And, wondering, on their faces fell
To worship that celestial sound.
Less than a god they thought there could not dwell
Within the hollow of that shell
That spoke so sweetly and so well.
What passion cannot Music raise and quell?
Excites us to arms,
With shrill notes of anger
And mortal alarms.
Of the thundering drum
Cries ‘Hark! the foes come;
Charge, charge, ’tis too late to retreat!’
In dying notes discovers
The woes of hopeless lovers,
Whose dirge is whisper’d by the warbling lute.
Their jealous pangs and desperation,
Fury, frantic indignation,
Depth of pains, and height of passion
For the fair disdainful dame.
What human voice can reach
The sacred organ’s praise?
Notes inspiring holy love,
Notes that wing their heavenly ways
To mend the choirs above.
And trees unrooted left their place
Sequacious of the lyre:
But bright Cecilia raised the wonder higher;
When to her Organ vocal breath was given
An Angel heard, and straight appear’d—
Mistaking Earth for Heaven.
As from the power of sacred lays
The spheres began to move,
And sung the great Creator’s praise
To all the blest above;
So when the last and dreadful hour
This crumbling pageant shall devour,
The trumpet shall be heard on high,
The dead shall live, the living die,
And Music shall untune the sky.