The frighted Indians with his thunder aw'd, A SONG FOR ST. CECILIA'S DAY, I. CECILIA, whose exalted hymns, Known and distinguish'd from the rest, Thy vocal sons of harmony; Attend, harmonious saint, and hear our pray'rs; And, as thou sing'st thy God, teach us to sing of thee: Be thou the muse and subject of our song. II. Let all Cecilia's praise proclaim, Employ the echo in her name. Hark how the flutes and trumpets raise, • The success of Alexander's Feast, made it fashionable for succeeding poets, to try their hand at a musical ode: but they mistook the matter, when they thought it enough to contend with Mr. Dryden.It was reserved for one or two of our days to give us a true idea of lyric poetry in English. Cecilia's name does all our numbers grace, And now it sinks, and dwells upon the base. The sound of ev'ry trembling string, III. For ever consecrate the day, To music and Cecilia; Music, the greatest good that mortals know, Music can noble hints impart, With unsuspected eloquence can move, The wolf and lamb around him trip, The moving woods attended, as he play'd, IV. Music religious heats inspires, It wakes the soul, and lifts it high, And fits it to bespeak the Deity. Th' Almighty listens to a tuneful tongue, And seems well pleas'd and courted with a song. Soft moving sounds and heav'nly airs Give force to ev'ry word, and recommend our pray'rs. When time itself shall be no more, And all things in confusion hurl'd, Music shall then exert its pow'r, And sound survive the ruins of the world: Then saints and angels shall agree In one eternal jubilee : All heav'n shall echo with their hymns divine, CHORUS. Consecrate the place and day, Let no rough winds approach, nor dare Nor mournful sigh nor groan be heard, In joy, and harmony, and love. AN ACCOUNT OF THE GREATEST ENGLISH POETS. TO MR. H. S. April 3, 1694. SINCE, dearest Harry, you will needs will needs request A short account of all the muse-possest, That, down from Chaucer's days to Dryden's times, Long had our dull forefathers slept supine, Henry Sacheverell, whose story is well known.-Yet with all his follies, some respect may seem due to the memory of a man, who had merit in his youth, as appears from a paper of verses under his name, in Dryden's Miscellanies; and who lived in the early friendship of Mr. Addison. b The introductory and concluding lines of this poem are a bad imitation of Horace's manner-Sermoni propiora. In the rest, the poetry is better than the criticism, which is right or wrong, as it chances; being echoed from the common voice. Thro' pathless fields, and unfrequented floods, Great Cowley then (a mighty genius) wrote, O'er-flows the heav'ns with one continu'd light; Th' unnumber'd beauties of thy verse with blame; But wit like thine in any shape will please. And plays in more unbounded verse, and takes a nobler Blest man! who now shalt be for ever known In Sprat's successful labours and thy own. But Milton, next, with high and haughty stalks, Unfetter'd in majestick numbers walks; Cowley had great merit, but nature had formed him to manage Anacreon's lute, and not Pindar's lyre. |