 | Cheerfull Ayres or Ballads, First composed for one single Voice and since set for three Voices by John Wilson |  |
On that incomparable Master of Musick Dr WILSON.
Sir, such in sounds your skill's, that while you're here,Oxfords not only Englands eye but Eare:
So at a shake of yours our passions flow,
As if you reacht our Heartstrings with your Bow,
Touch your Theorboe, and round all our souls
Like Unisons the restlesse Quaver rouls,
Your Schoole did never so deserve its name,
As since your ravishing Rhetorick thither came,
No lofty style like Ela can command,
No Figures like the postures of your Hand,
How have I seen, souls melting through the Eyes,
Ears chaind, tongues silent at your Melodies.
Like Orpheus Rivers, Beasts, Stones, Birds you move,
When Tears, & wrath, Fiercenesse, and Winged Love
Follow your Tunes, such Majesty attends
Your strokes, that Law comes from your Fingers ends,
The Spartans Musick made them fight & die,
Your's would have made them to graspe Victorie.
No wonder then if Poets find their Feet,
When with such all Commanding notes they meet.
Praise is an Echo to good deeds, then fit
It is, good Musick should have most of it.
A. C.
| Cheerfull Ayres or Ballads, First composed for one single Voice and since set for three Voices by John Wilson | |