 | Poems on several occasions |  |
68
On MUSIC.
I.
Music the coldest Heart can warm,The hardest melt, the fiercest charm;
Disarm the Savage of his Rage,
Dispel our Cares, and Pains assuage;
With Joy it can our Souls inspire,
And tune our Tempers to the Lyre;
Our Passions, like the Notes, agree,
And stand subdu'd by Harmony.
This found the melancholy King,
When David tun'd the trembling String:
Sweet Music chas'd the sullen Spleen away,
And made his clouded Soul serenely gay.
69
II.
While Music breathes in Martial Airs,The Coward durst forget his Fears;
Or, if the Notes to Pity sound,
Revenge and Envy cease to wound:
The Pow'r of Music has been known
To raise or tumble Cities down:
Thus Theban Turrets, Authors say,
Were rais'd by Music's magic Lay;
And ancient Jericho's Heav'n-hated Wall,
To sacred Music, ow'd its destin'd Fall.
III.
Nor Mortals only Music love;It chears celestial Saints above:
Sweet Hallelujahs Angels sing
Around their great Ethereal King;
70
The Father too approves their Lays;
For HE (as all Things) Music made,
And Seraphims before Him play'd:
When over Horeb's Mount He came,
Array'd in Majesty and Flame;
After the sounding Trump, sublime, He rode;
The sounding Trump proclaim'd th'approaching God.
IV.
Music had Being, long beforeThe solemn Organ learnt to roar:
When Michael, o'er the heav'nly Plain,
Advanc'd, to fight the rebel Train;
Loud Trumpets did his Wrath declare,
In Music, terrible to hear:
And when the Universe was made,
On golden Harps the Angels play'd:
71
Music shall penetrate the Dust;
The Trump shall sound with the Archangel's Breath;
And, sweetly dreadful! wake the Dead from Death.
| Poems on several occasions | |