The Muses Melody in a Consort Of Poetry :: :: University of Virginia Library

Empress of Order, whose eternal Armes
Put Chaos into Concord; by whose Charmes
The Cherubims in Anthems cleer and even
Create a Consort for the King of Heaven:
Inspire me with thy Magick, that my Numbers
May rock the never-sleeping Soul in slumbers:
Tune up my Lyre, that when I sing thy merits
My subdivided Notes may sprinkle Spirits,
Into mine Auditory, whilst their fears
Suggest their souls are sallying through their ears.
What Tropes or Figures can thy glories reach,
That art thy self the splendor of all Speech?
Mysterious Musique! He that doth thee right,
Must shew thy Excellence by thy own Light:
Thy Purity must teach us how to Praise,
As men seek out the Sun, with his own rayes.
What Creature, that hath Being, Life, or Sense,
But wears the badges of thy Influence?
Musique is Harmony, whose copious bounds
Is not confined onely unto Sounds,
'Tis the Eys object (for without Extortion)
It comprehends all things that have Proportion.
Musique is Concord, and doth hold allusion
With every thing that doth oppose Confusion.

In comely Architecture it may be
Known by the Name of Uniformity,
Where Pyramids to Pyramids relate,
And the whole Fabrick doth configurate:
In perfectly proportion'd Creatures we
Accept it by the title Symmetry,
When many Men forsome design convent,
And all concentre, it is call'd consent:
Where mutual hearts in sympathy do move,
Some few embrace it by the name of Love:
But where the Soul and Body do agree
To serve their God, it is Divinity:
In all melodious Compositions wee
Declare and know it to be Symphonie;
Where all the Parts in Complication roll,
And every one contributes to the whole.
He that can set, and humor Notes aright,
Will move the Soul to Sorrow, to Delight,
To Courage, Curtesie, to Consolation,
To Love, to Gravity, to Contemplation.
It hath been known (by its Magnetique Motion,)
To raise Repentance, and advance Devotion:
It works on all the Faculties, and why?
The very Soul it self is Harmony.
Musique! it is the breath of Second Birth;
The Saints employment, and the Angels Mirth,
The Rhetorick of Seraphims, a Gem
In the Kings Crown of New Jerusalem
They sing continually; the Exposition
Must needs infer there is no intermission:

I hear some men hate Musick: let them shew
In holy writ, what else the Angels do:
Then those that do despise such sacred Mirth
Are neither fit for Heaven, nor for Earth.