Collected English Verse — John Dryden. b. 1631, d. 1700 (Part 2 of 3)

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.

412   A Song for St. Cecilia’s Day, 1687

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!

413   One Happy Moment

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