Page:Golden Treasury of English Songs and Lyrics.djvu/64

 

lxiii

SONG FOR SAINT CECILIA’S DAY, 1687

From Harmony, from heavenly Harmony
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.
From harmony, from heavenly harmony
This universal frame began:
From harmony to harmony
Through all the compass of the notes it ran,
The diapason closing full in Man.

What passion cannot Music raise and quell?
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?

The trumpet’s loud clangor
Excites us to arms,
With shrill notes of anger
And mortal alarms.
The double double double beat
Of the thundering drum
Cries ‘Hark ! the foes come;
Charge, charge, ’tis too late to retreat!’

The soft complaining flute
In dying notes discovers