Where Peace defcending bids her olive spring, ODE for MUSIC ON ST. CECILIA's DAY: D 1. Efcend, ye Nine! defcend and fing; Wake into voice each filent string, In a fadly-pleafing strain Let the warbling lute complain : The fhrill echos rebound: NOTES. Ode for Mufic.] This is one of the most artful as well as fublime of our Poet's fmaller compofitions. The firft ftanza expresses the various tones and measures in mufic. The fecond defcribes their power over the feveral paffions in general. The third explains their ufe in infpiring the Heroic paffions in particular. The fourth, fifth, and fixth, their power over all nature in the fable of Orpheus's expedition to hell; which fubject of illustration arofe naturally out of the preceding men While in more lengthen'd notes and flow, ΙΟ blow. The deep, majestic, folemn organs Hark! the numbers foft and clear the ear; Gently steal upon Now louder, and yet louder rise, And fill with spreading founds the skies; 15 Exulting in triumph now fwell the bold notes, In broken air, trembling, the wild mufic floats; "Till, by degrees, remote and finall, The ftrains decay, And melt away, In a dying, dying fall. II. By Mufic, minds an equal temper know, NOTES. 20 25 tion of the Argonautic expedition, where Orpheus gives the example of the ufe of Mufic to infpire the heroic paffions. The feventh and laft conclude in praife of Mufic, and the advantages of the facred above the prophane, VER. 7. Let the loud trumpet found, etc.] Our Author, in his rules for good writing, had faid, that the found fhould be an echo to the fenfe. The graces it adds to the harmony are obvious. But we fhould never have feen all the advantages arifing from this rule, had this ode not been written. In which, one may venture to fay, is found all the harmony that poetic found, when it comes in aid of fenfe, is capable of producing. |