* For ever confecrate the day,
To mufic and Cecilia;
"Mufic, the greatest good that mortals know,
And all of heaven we have below.
Mufic can noble hints impart,
Engender fury, kindle love;
With unfufpected eloquence can move,
all the man with fecret art.
When Orpheus strikes the trembling lyre,
The ftreams ftand ftill, the ftones admire;
The liftening favages advance,
The wolf and lamb around him trip,
The bears in aukward measures leap,
And tigers mingle in the dance.
The moving woods attended as he play'd,
And Rhodope was left without a shade.
Mufic religious heats infpires,
It wakes the foul, and lifts it high,
And wings it with fublime defires,
And fits it to bespeak the Deity.
Th' Almighty liftens to a tuneful tongue,
And feems well-pleas'd and courted with a fong.
Soft moving founds and heavenly airs
Give force to every word, and recommend our prayers.
When time itfelf fhall be no more,
And all things in confufion hurl'd,
Mufic fhall then exert its power,
And found furvive the ruins of the world:
Then faints and angels shall agree
In one eternal jubilee :
All heaven fhall echo with their hymns divine,
And God himself with pleasure fee
The whole creation in a chorus join.
Confecrate the place and day,
To mufic and Cecilia.
Let no rough winds approach, nor dare
Invade the hallow'd bounds,
Nor rudely fhake the tuneful air,
Nor spoil the fleeting founds.
Nor mournful figh nor groan be heard,
But gladnefs dwell on every tongue; Whilft all, with voice and ftrings prepar'd, Keep up the loud harmonious fong.
And imitate the bleft above,
In joy, and harmony, and love.
A fhort account of all the Mufe-poffeft,
That, down from Chaucer's days to Dryden's times,
Have fpent their noble rage in British rhymes;
Without more preface, writ in formal length,
To speak the undertaker's want of strength,
I 'll try to make their several beauties known,
And fhow their verfes worth, though not my own.
Long had our dull forefathers flept fupine,
Nor felt the raptures of the tuneful Nine;
Till Chaucer firft, a merry bard, arose,
And many a story told in rhyme and profe.
But age has rufted what the Poet writ,
Worn out his language, and obfcur'd his wit:
In vain he jets in his unpolish'd strain,
And tries to make his readers laugh in vain.
Old Spenfer next, warm'd with poetic rage,
In ancient tales amus'd a barbarous age;
age that yet uncultivate and rude,
Where-e'er the poet's fancy led, pursued
Through pathlefs fields, and unfrequented floods,
To dens of dragons, and enchanted woods.
But now the myftic tale, that pleas'd of yore,
Can charm an understanding age no more;
The long-fpun allegories fulfome grow,
While the dull moral lies too plain below.
We view well-pleas'd at distance all the fights,
Of arms and palfries, battles, fields, and fights,
And damfeis in diftrefs, and courteous knights.
But when we look too near, the fhades decay,
And all the pleafing landskip fades away.
Great Cowley then (a mighty genius) wrote,
O'er-run with wit, and lavifh of his thought:
His turns too closely on the reader press:
He more had pleas'd us, had he pleas'd us less,
One glittering thought no fooner strikes our eyes.
With filent wonder, but new wonders rife.
As in the milky-way a fhining white
O'erflows the heavens with one continued light;
That not a fingle ftar can fhew his rays,
Whilft jointly all promote the common blaze.
Pardon, great Poet, that I dare to name
Th' unnumber'd beauties of thy verfe with blame;
Thy fault is only wit in its excefs:
But wit like thine in any fhape will please.
What Mufe but thine can equal hints infpire,
And fit the deep-mouth'd Pindar to thy lyre:
Pindar, whom others in a labour'd strain,
And forc'd expreffion, imitate in vain ?
D 2
Well-pleas'd in thee he foars with new delight,"
And plays in more unbounded verfe, and takes a nobler flight.
Bleft man! whose spotlefs life and charming lays Employ'd the tuneful prelate in thy praise; Bleft man who now fhall be for ever known, In Sprat's fuccessful labours and thy own.
But Milton next, with high and haughty stalks, Unfetter'd in majestic numbers walks :
No vulgar hero can his Muse engage;
Nor earth's wide fcene confine his hallow'd rage.
See! fee! he upwards fprings, and towering high
Spurns the dull province of mortality,
Shakes heaven's eternal throne with dire alarms,
And fets th' Almighty thunderer in arms.
What e'er his pen describes I more than see,
Whilft every verse, array'd in majesty,
Bold and fublime, my whole attention draws,
And feems above the critics nicer laws.
How are you ftruck with terror and delight,
When angel with arch-angel copes in fight!
When great Meffiah's out-spread banner shines,
How does the chariot rattle in his lines!
What found of brazen wheels, what thunder, fcare,
And ftun the reader with the din of war!
With fear my fpirits and my blood retire,
To fee the feraphs funk in clouds of fire;
But when, with eager fteps, from hence I rife,
And view the firft gay fcenes of Paradise;
What tongue, what words of rapture can exprefs
A vifion fo profufe of pleafantnefs!
|