thus Orinda died:
Heaven, by the same disease, did both translate;
As equal were their souls, so equal
was their fate.
Meantime, her warlike brother on the seas
His waving streamers to the winds displays,
And
vows for his return, with vain devotion, pays.
Ah, generous youth! that wish forbear,
The winds too soon
will waft thee here!
YSlack all thy sails, and fear to come,
Alas, thou know’st not, thou art wreck’d at home!
No
more shalt thou behold thy sister’s face,
Thou hast already had her last embrace.
But look aloft, and if
thou kenn’st from far,
Among the Pleiads a new kindl’d star,
If any sparkles than the rest more bright,
’Tis
she that shines in that propitious light.
When in mid-air the golden trump shall sound,
To raise the nations under ground;
When, in
the Valley of Jehoshaphat,
The judging God shall close the book of Fate,
And there the last assizes keep
For
those who wake and those who sleep;
When rattling bones together fly
From the four corners of the sky;
When
sinews o’er the skeletons are spread,
Those cloth’d with flesh, and life inspires the dead;
The sacred
Poets first shall hear the sound,
And foremost from the tomb shall bound,
For they are cover’d with the
lightest ground;
And straight, with inborn vigour, on the wing,
Like mounting larks, to the new morning
sing.
There thou, sweet Saint, before the quire shalt go,
As harbinger of Heaven, the way to show,
The
way which thou so well hast learn’d below.
FROM harmony, from heavenly harmony,
This universal frame began:
When nature underneath
a heap
Of jarring atoms lay,
And could not heave her head,
The tuneful voice was heard from high,
‘Arise,
ye more than dead!’
Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry,
In order to their stations leap,
And Music’s
power obey.
From harmony, from heavenly harmony,
This universal frame began:
From harmony to harmony
Through
all the compass of the notes it ran,
The diapason closing full in Man.
What passion cannot Music raise and quell?
When Jubal struck the chorded shell,
His listening
brethren stood around,
And, wondering, on their faces fell
To worship that celestial sound:
Less than a
God they thought there could not dwell
Within the hollow of that shell,
That spoke so sweetly, and so
well.
What passion cannot Music raise and quell?
The trumpet’s loud clangour
Excites us to arms,
With shrill notes of anger,
And mortal alarms.
The
double double double beat
Of the thundering drum
Cries Hark! the foes come;
Charge, charge, ’tis too
late to retreat!
The soft complaining flute,
In dying notes, discovers
The woes of hopeless lovers,
Whose
dirge is whisper’d by the warbling lute.
Sharp violins proclaim
Their jealous pangs and desperation,
Fury,
frantic indignation,
Depth of pains, and height of passion.
For the fair, disdainful dame.
But O, what art can teach,
What human voice can reach,
The sacred organ’s praise?
Notes
inspiring holy love,
Notes that wing their heavenly ways
To mend the choirs above.
Orpheus could lead
the savage race;
And trees unrooted left their place,
Sequacious of the lyre;
But bright Cecilia rais’d the
wonder higher:
When to her organ vocal breath was given,
An angel heard, and straight appear’d
Mistaking
Earth for Heaven.
GRAND CHORUS
As from the power of sacred lays
The spheres began to move,
And sung the great Creator’s
praise
To all the Blest above;
So when the last and dreadful hour
This crumbling pageant shall devour,
The
trumpet shall be heard on high,
The dead shall live, the living die,
And Music shall untune the sky!
NO, no, poor suff’ring Heart, no Change endeavour,
Choose to sustain the smart, rather than
leave her;
My ravish’d eyes behold such charms about her,
I can die with her, but not live without her:
One
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