ODE ON ST. CECILIA'S DAY.

"Mend your speech a littleLest it may mar your fortunes."

—Shakespeare,King Lear, Act i, sc. i.

12."The gaping of the vowels in this line, the expletivedoin the next, and the ten monosyllables in that which follows, give such a beauty to this passage as would have been very much admired in an ancient poet."—Addison.

13.Pope himself is not disinclined to make use of these rhymes. See "Essay on Man," 271.

"Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze,Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees."

14.Referring to the Spenserian stanza which is composed of nine lines, eight of which are iambic pentameters, and the ninth a hexameter or Alexandrine. The name Alexandrine is said to have been derived from an old French poem on Alexander the Great, written about the twelfth or thirteenth century, and composed entirely of hexameter verses. See note on the versification of the "Faerie Queene," page232.

15.Observe the skill with which, both in this line and in several which precede and follow, the poet has made "the sound to seem an echo to the sense."

16.Waller had been regarded as the greatest poet of the seventeenth century (see page205), and Denham, in the time of Pope, was more esteemed than Milton or Spenser. Dryden called Denham

"That limping old bardWhose fame on 'The Sophy' and 'Cooper's Hill' stands."

17.numbers.Poetical metre.

"As yet a child nor yet a fool to fame,I lisped in numbers, for the numbers came."

—Pope, Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot.

18.Ajax."The beautiful distich upon Ajax puts me in mind of a description in Homer's 'Odyssey,' which none of the critics have taken notice of. It is where Sisyphus is represented lifting his stone up the hill which is no sooner carried to the top of it, but it immediately tumbles to the bottom. This double motion of the stone is admirably described in the numbers of these verses; as in the four first it is heaved up by several spondees intermixed with proper breathing places, and at last trundles down in a continual line of dactyls."—Addison.

19.Camilla.The virgin queen of the Volsci. She aided Turnus against Æneas, and was famed for her fleetness of foot.

20.Timotheus.See notes on "Alexander's Feast," by Dryden.

21.son of Libyan Jove.Alexander. See note 5, page166.

22.Quality.Persons of high rank.

Descend, ye Nine!1descend and sing;The breathing instruments inspire,Wake into voice each silent string,And sweep the sounding lyre!In a sadly pleasing strain,2Let the warbling lute complain:Let the loud trumpet sound,Till the roofs all aroundThe shrill echoes rebound;While in more lengthen'd notes and slow,The deep, majestic, solemn organs blow.Hark! the numbers soft and clearGently steal upon the ear;Now louder, and yet louder rise,And fill with spreading sounds the skies:Exulting in triumph now swell the bold notes,In broken air, trembling, the wild music floats,Till, by degrees, remote and small,The strains decay,And melt away,In a dying, dying fall.

By music, minds an equal temper know,3Nor swell too high, nor sink too low.If in the breast tumultuous joys arise,Music her soft, assuasive4voice applies;Or, when the soul is press'd with cares,Exalts her in enlivening airs.Warriors she fires with animated sounds;Pours balm into the bleeding lover's wounds:Melancholy lifts her head,Morpheus rouses from his bed,Sloth unfolds her arms and wakes,Listening Envy drops her snakes;Intestine war no more our passions wage,And giddy factions hear away their rage.

But when our country's cause provokes to arms,How martial music every bosom warms!So when the first bold vessel dared the seas,High on the stern the Thracian raised his strain,5While Argo saw her kindred treesDescend from Pelion to the main.Transported demi-gods6stood round,And men grew heroes at the sound,Inflamed with glory's charms;Each chief his sevenfold shield display'd,And half unsheathed the shining blade:And seas, and rocks, and skies rebound,To arms! to arms! to arms!

But when, through all the infernal bounds7Which flaming Phlegethon surrounds,Love, strong as death,8the poet ledTo the pale nations of the dead,What sounds were heard,What scenes appear'd,O'er all the dreary coast!Dreadful gleams,Dismal screams,Fires that glow,Shrieks of woe,Sullen moans,Hollow groans,And cries of tortured ghosts!But, hark! he strikes the golden lyre;And see! the tortured ghosts respire,See, shady forms9advance!Thy stone, O Sisyphus, stands still,10Ixion rests upon his wheel,And the pale spectres dance;The Furies sink upon their iron beds,And snakes uncurl'd hang listening round their heads.

By the streams that ever flow,By the fragrant winds that blowO'er the Elysian flowers;By those happy souls who dwellIn yellow meads of asphodel,Or amaranthine bowers;By the heroes' armed shades,Glittering through the gloomy glades,By the youths that died for love,Wandering in the myrtle grove,Restore, restore Eurydice to life:Oh take the husband, or return the wife!He sung, and hell11consentedTo hear the poet's prayer;Stern Proserpine relented,And gave him back the fair.Thus song could prevailO'er death and o'er hell,A conquest how hard and how glorious!Though fate had fast bound herWith Styx nine times round her,Yet music and love were victorious.12

He sung, and hell11consentedTo hear the poet's prayer;Stern Proserpine relented,And gave him back the fair.Thus song could prevailO'er death and o'er hell,A conquest how hard and how glorious!Though fate had fast bound herWith Styx nine times round her,Yet music and love were victorious.12

But soon, too soon, the lover turns his eyes:Again she falls, again she dies, she dies!How wilt thou now the fatal sisters move?No crime was thine, if 'tis no crime to love.Now under hanging mountains,Beside the falls of fountains,Or where Hebrus wanders,Rolling in meanders,All alone,Unheard, unknown,He makes his moan;And calls her ghost,For ever, ever, ever lost!Now with furies surrounded,13Despairing, confounded,He trembles, he glows,Amidst Rhodope's14snows:See, wild as the winds, o'er the desert he flies;Hark! Hæmus resounds with the Bacchanals' cries—Ah see, he dies!Yet even in death Eurydice he sung,Eurydice still trembled on his tongue,Eurydice the woods,Eurydice the floods,Eurydice the rocks, and hollow mountains rung.

Music15the fiercest grief can charm,And fate's severest rage disarm;Music can soften pain to ease,And make despair and madness please:Our joys below it can improve,And antedate the bliss above.This the divine Cecilia found,And to her Maker's praise confined the sound.When the full organ joins the tuneful choir,The immortal powers incline their ear;Borne on the swelling notes our souls aspire,While solemn airs improve the sacred fire;And angels lean from heaven to hear.Of Orpheus now no more let poets tell,To bright Cecilia greater power is given;His numbers raised a shade from hell,Hers lift the soul to heaven.16

This poem was written in 1708 at the suggestion of Sir Richard Steele; it was set to music by Maurice Greene, and in 1730 was performed at the public commemoration at Cambridge. Its model is Dryden's famous ode, "Alexander's Feast," of which Pope was a warm admirer (see page159). Dr. Johnson says; "In his 'Ode on St. Cecilia's Day' Pope is generally confessed to have miscarried; yet he has miscarried only as compared with Dryden, for he has far outgone other competitors. Dryden's plan is better chosen; history will always take stronger hold of the passions than fable: the passions excited by Dryden are the pleasures and pains of real life; the scene of Pope is laid in imaginary existence; Pope is read with calm acquiescence, Dryden with turbulent delight; Pope hangs upon the ear, Dryden finds the passes of the mind. Both the odes want the essential constituent of metrical compositions, the stated recurrence of settled numbers. . . . If Pope's ode be particularly inspected, it will be found that the first stanza consists of sounds, well chosen, indeed, but only sounds. The second consists of hyperbolical commonplaces, easily to be found, and, perhaps, without much difficulty to be as well expressed. In the third, however, there are numbers, images, harmony, and vigor not unworthy the antagonist of Dryden. Had all been like this—but every part cannot be the best. The next stanzas place and detain us in the dark and dismal regions of mythology; . . . we have all that can be performed by elegance of diction or sweetness of versification; but what can form avail without better matter? The last stanza again refers to commonplaces. The conclusion is too evidently modelled by that of Dryden; and it may be remarked that both end with the same fault—the comparison of each is literal on one side and metaphorical on the other. Poets do not always express their own thoughts. Pope, with all this labor in the praise of music, was ignorant of its principles and insensible of its effects."

St. Cecilia, the Christian Polyhymnia and patron saint of sacred music, is said to have suffered martyrdom about the year 230. In Chaucer's"Seconde Nonnes Tale"—which is an almost literal translation of the "Legenda Aurea," written in the thirteenth century—it is related that, on account of Cecilia's spotless purity, an angel came down from heaven to be her guardian. Her husband, Valerian, was also the recipient of angelic favors, for

"This angel had of roses and lilieCorones two, the which he bare in honde,And first to Cecile, as I understonde,He yaf that on, and after gan he takeThat other to Valerian hire make."

How and when Cecilia was first recognized as the patron saint of music does not appear. The legend only says, that

"While the organs maden melodie,To God alone thus in hire hert song she;'O Lord, my soule and eke my body gieUnwemmed, lest that I confounded be.'"

There is also a tradition in the church that St. Cecilia was the inventor of the organ. Dryden calls her "inventress of the vocal frame" (see page164). The origin of this musical instrument is not known, but the first organs used in Italy are said to have been brought thither from Greece. Some of the Roman churches are known to have had them in use in the seventh century, but they were not common until several hundred years later. The festival of St. Cecilia occurs on the 22d of November.

1.ye Nine.The nine Muses: (1) Calliope, the Muse of epic poetry; (2) Clio, the Muse of history; (3) Euterpe, the Muse of lyric poetry; (4) Melpomene, the Muse of tragedy; (5) Terpsichore, the Muse of choral dance and song; (6) Erato, the Muse of erotic poetry; (7) Polyhymnia, the Muse of the sublime hymn; (8) Urania, the Muse of astronomy; (9) Thalia, the Muse of comedy and idyllic poetry. The custom of invoking the Muses, at the beginning of poems, is derived from Homer:

"Of Peleus' son, Achilles, sing, O Muse."

—Iliad, I, 1.

"Tell me, O Muse, of that sagacious manWho, having overthrown the sacred townOf Ilium, wandered far," etc.

—Odyssey, I, 1.

Milton invokes the

"heavenly Muse that on the secret topOf Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspireThat shepherd," etc.

—Paradise Lost, I, 1.

2.Observe how, in the sixteen lines following, the sound is made in some measure to be "an echo to the sense."

3.equal temper know.Evenness of disposition acquire. The music of Timotheus had an opposite effect on Alexander. See "Alexander's Feast."

4.assuasive.Moderating.

5.the Thracian raised his strain.Orpheus was a Thracian, the son of Œagrus and the Muse Calliope. Apollo gave him a lyre, and the Muses instructed him in its use; and so sweet was the music which he drew from it that the wild beasts were enchanted and the trees and rocks moved from their places to follow the sound. When Jason and his followers, the Argonauts, were unable to launch their ship Argo, Orpheus played his lyre, and the vessel glided into the sea, while her "kindred trees descended" from the slopes of the mountain (Pelion) and followed her into "the main."

6.demi-gods.Half-gods; heroes. Among the Argonauts were Hercules, Castor and Pollux, Theseus, Peleus, Nestor, and others similarly renowned.

7.infernal bounds.Boundaries of hell. The wife of Orpheus was a nymph named Eurydice. She having died from the bite of a serpent, the sweet musician followed her into the infernal regions. He begged of Pluto that his wife might return with him to the earth, but his prayer was granted only upon condition that he should not look back upon her until both had safely passed the gates between Hades and the upper world. The poet tells the rest of the story.

Phlegethon.A river of hell in which flowed fire instead of water.

8.See Song of Solomon viii. 6: "Love is strong as death."

9.shady forms.Departed spirits were called "shades," because they were supposed to be perceptible sometimes to the sight but never to the touch. See "heroes' armed shades," below.

10.Sisyphus.See note 18, page147.

Ixion.King of the Lapithæ. As a punishment for ingratitude to Zeus, his hands and feet were chained to a wheel which was always in motion.

Furies.See note 20, page167.

11.hell.The powers of hell—or, as he explains below, Proserpine, the queen of the infernal regions.Styx.The principal river of hell, around which it flows seven—not nine—times.

12.See Milton's "L'Allegro," 135:

"Lap me in soft Lydian airs,Married to immortal verse, . . .That Orpheus' self may heave his headFrom golden slumber on a bedOf heaped Elysian flowers, and hearSuch strains as would have won the earOf Pluto to have quite set freeHis half-regain'd Eurydice."

13.Orpheus's grief for the loss of Eurydice caused him to treat with contempt the Thracian women among whom he dwelt, and they in revenge tore him to pieces, under the excitement of their Bacchanalian orgies. His head was given by the Hebrus to the sea, and finally carried to the island of Lesbos, where it was buried. See Milton's "Lycidas," 58:

"What could the Muse herself that Orpheus bore,The Muse herself for her enchanting son,Whom universal nature did lament,When by the rout that made the hideous roar,His gory visage down the stream was sent,Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore?"

See, also, "Paradise Lost," VII, 32:

"The barbarous dissonanceOf Bacchus and his revellers, the raceOf that wild rout that tore the Thracian bardIn Rhodope, where woods and rocks had earsTo rapture, till the savage clamor drown'dBoth harp and voice; nor could the Muse defendHer son."

14.Rhodope.A range of mountains in Thrace, sacred to Bacchus.Hæmuswas another range extending from Rhodope, on the west, to the Black Sea, on the east.

15.Music.Compare what Pope says of music with:

"Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast."

—Congreve,The Mourning Bride.

"O Music! sphere-descended maid,Friend of pleasure, wisdom's aid!"

—Collins,The Passions.

"Soft is the music that would charm forever."

—Wordsworth,Sonnets.

16.Compare these lines with the four which end Dryden's "Alexander's Feast."

Alexander Popewas born in London in 1688. He had some instruction at home, and was afterwards sent, first to a Roman Catholic seminary near Winchester, then to another in London."This," he said, "was all the teaching I ever had, and God knows it extended a very little way. When I had done with my priests, I took to reading by myself, for which I had a very great eagerness and enthusiasm, especially for poetry: and in a few years I had dipped into a very great number of the English, Italian, Latin, and Greek poets." He was small of stature and deformed, and his ill health made him peevish, irritable, and selfish. Yet his rare intellectual abilities and the deserved success of his earlier poetry secured for him the friendship of many of the most influential men of the time. Bolingbroke declared that he never knew a man more tenderly devoted to his friends; and Warburton said, "He is as good a companion as poet, and, what is more, appears to be a good man."

Pope's "Essay on Criticism" was published in 1711; the "Rape of the Lock" in 1714; his translation of Homer's "Iliad" in 1715-18, and of the "Odyssey" in 1726; the "Dunciad" in 1728; the "Essay on Man" in 1732. A revised and enlarged version of the "Dunciad" was published in 1742. The latter part of Pope's life was spent at his country-seat of Twickenham, which he enlarged and beautified from the proceeds of his translation of Homer. He died in 1744.

"Pope is our greatest master in didactic poetry," says Stopford Brooke, "not so much because of the worth of the thoughts as because of the masterly form in which they are put."

"In two directions," says Mark Pattison, "in that of condensing and pointing his meaning, and in that of drawing the utmost harmony of sound out of the couplet, Pope carried versification far beyond the point at which it was when he took it up. The matter which he worked up into his verse has a permanent value, and is indeed one of the most precious heirlooms which the eighteenth century has bequeathed us."

Other Poems to be Read:The Rape of the Lock; The Dying Christian to his Soul; The Universal Prayer; Pastorals; Windsor Forest.

References:Johnson'sLives of the Poets; Stephen'sHours in a Library; De Quincey'sLiterature of the Eighteenth Century; Lowell'sMy Study Window;Pope(English Men of Letters), by Leslie Stephen.

"The people of the seventeenth century were weary of liberty, weary of the unmitigated rage of the dramatists, cloyed with the roses and the spices and the kisses of the lyrists, tired of being carried over the universe and up and down the avenues of history at the freak of every irresponsible rhymester. Literature had been set open to all the breezes of heaven by the blustering and glittering Elizabethans, and in the hands of their less gifted successors it was fast declining into a mere Cave of the Winds. . . . We know the poets of the early Caroline period almost entirely by extracts, and their ardor, quaintness, and sudden flashes of inspiration give them a singular advantage in this form. The sustained elevation which had characterized Shakespeare and Spenser, and even in some degree several of the chief of their contemporaries, had passed away, but still the poets were most brilliant, most delectable in their purple patches. . . . As the last waves of the Renaissance died away, a deathly calm settled down upon the pools of thought. Man returned from the particular to the general, from romantic examples to those disquisitions on the norm which were thought to display a classical taste. The seer disappeared, and the artificer took his place. For a whole century the singer that only sang because he must, and as the linnets do, was entirely absent from English literature. He came back at the close of the eighteenth century, with Burns in Scotland, and with Blake in England."—Edmund Gosse."At the same time, amid the classical coldness which then dried up English literature, and the social excess which then corrupted English morals . . . appeared a mighty and superb mind (Milton), prepared by logic and enthusiasm for eloquence and the epic style; the heir of a poetical age, the precursor of an austere age, holding his place between the epoch of unselfish dreaming and the epoch of practical action."—Taine.

"At the same time, amid the classical coldness which then dried up English literature, and the social excess which then corrupted English morals . . . appeared a mighty and superb mind (Milton), prepared by logic and enthusiasm for eloquence and the epic style; the heir of a poetical age, the precursor of an austere age, holding his place between the epoch of unselfish dreaming and the epoch of practical action."—Taine.

Ben Jonson(1573-1637). See biographical note, page213.

William Drummond of Hawthornden(1585-1649). Short poems; "Poems: Amorous, Funerall, Divine, Pastorall, in Sonnets, Songs, Sextains, Madrigals"; "Floures of Sion."

William Browne(1588-1643). "Britannia's Pastorals"; "The Shepherd's Pipe"; "The Inner Temple Masque."

George Wither(1588-1667). Short poems; "Collection of Emblems"; "Nature of Man"; "The Shepheard's Hunting"; "Fidelia."

Phineas Fletcher(1582-1650). "The Locustes"; "The Purple Island."

Giles Fletcher(1588-1623). "Christ's Victory and Triumph."

Thomas Carew(1589-1639). Short poems; "Cælum Britannicum."

Francis Quarles(1592-1644). "Divine Poems"; "Emblems, Divine and Moral."

Robert Herrick(1594-1674). See biographical note, page202.

Sir John Suckling(1608-1642). Love poems.

Richard Lovelace(1618-1658). Short poems; "Lucasta: Odes, Sonnets, Songs," etc.

Lord Herbert of Cherbury(1581-1648). Odes and short poems.

George Herbert(1592-1634). "The Temple: Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations"; short poems.

George Sandys(1577-1643). "Christ's Passion."

Richard Crashaw(1615-1650). "Steps to the Altar."

Henry Vaughan(1621-1695). "Silex Scintillans"; "The Mount of Olives."

Abraham Cowley(1618-1667). "Poetical Blossomes"; "The Mistress."

Edmund Waller(1605-1687). See biographical note, page205.

Sir John Denham(1615-1668). "Cooper's Hill."

Sir William Davenant(1605-1668). "Gondibert"; "Madagascar and Other Poems."

John Milton(1608-1674). See biographical note, page195.

Andrew Marvell(1621-1678). Lyric and satiric poems.

Samuel Butler(1612-1680). "Hudibras."

Thomas Otway(1651-1685). "The Poet's Complaint of his Muse"; "Windsor Castle."

John Dryden(1631-1700). See biographical note, page175.

'Twas at the royal feast,1for Persia wonBy Philip's warlike son:Aloft in awful stateThe godlike hero sateOn his imperial throne:His valiant peers were placed around;Their brows with roses and with myrtles bound:2(So should desert in arms be crowned.)The lovely Thais,3by his side,Sate like a blooming Eastern brideIn flower of youth and beauty's pride.Happy, happy, happy pair!None but the brave,None but the brave,None but the brave deserves the fair.Chorus.Happy, happy, happy pair!None but the brave,None but the brave,None but the brave deserves the fair.Timotheus,4placed on highAmid the tuneful quire,With flying fingers touched the lyre:The trembling notes ascend the sky,And heavenly joys inspire.The song began from Jove,5Who left his blissful seats above,(Such is the power of mighty love.)A dragon's fiery form belied the god:Sublime on radiant spires he rode.The listening crowd admire the lofty sound,A present deity,6they shout around;A present deity, the vaulted roofs rebound:With ravish'd earsThe monarch hears,Assumes the god,Affects to nod,7And seems to shake the spheres.Chorus.With ravish'd earsThe monarch hears,Assumes the god,Affects to nod,And seems to shake the spheres.The praise of Bacchus then, the sweet musician sung,Of Bacchus ever fair and ever young:The jolly god in triumph comes;Sound the trumpets; beat the drums;Flush'd with a purple grace,He shows his honest face:Now give the hautboys8breath; he comes! he comes!Bacchus, ever fair and young,Drinking joys did first ordain;Bacchus' blessings are a treasure,Drinking is the soldier's pleasure;Rich the treasure,Sweet the pleasure;Sweet is pleasure after pain.Chorus.Bacchus' blessings are a treasure,Drinking is the soldier's pleasure;Rich the treasure,Sweet the pleasure;Sweet is pleasure after pain.Sooth'd with the sound, the king grew vain;Fought all his battles o'er again;And thrice he routed all his foes; and thrice he slew the slain.9The master saw the madness rise;His glowing cheeks, his ardent eyes;And, while he Heaven and Earth defied,Changed his hand, and check'd his pride.He chose a mournful muse,Soft pity to infuse:He sung Darius10great and good,By too severe a fate,Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen,Fallen from his high estate,And welt'ring in his blood;Deserted at his utmost need,By those his former bounty fed:On the bare earth expos'd he lies,11With not a friend to close his eyes.12With downcast looks the joyless victor sate,Revolving in his alter'd soulThe various turns of chance below;And, now and then, a sigh he stole,13And tears began to flow.Chorus.Revolving in his alter'd soulThe various turns of chance below;And, now and then, a sigh he stole,And tears began to flow.The mighty master smil'd to seeThat love was in the next degree:'Twas but a kindred sound to move,For pity melts the mind to love.14Softly sweet, in Lydian15measures,Soon he sooth'd his soul to pleasures.War, he sung, is toil and trouble;Honor, but an empty bubble;16Never ending, still beginning,Fighting still, and still destroying;If the world be worth thy winning,Think, oh think it worth enjoying!Lovely Thais sits beside thee,Take the good the gods provide thee.The many17rend the air with loud applause;So Love was crown'd, but Music won the cause.The prince, unable to conceal his pain,Gaz'd on the fairWho caus'd his care,And sigh'd and look'd,18sigh'd and look'd,Sigh'd and look'd, and sigh'd again;At length, with love and wine at once oppress'd,The vanquish'd victor sunk upon her breast.Chorus.The prince, unable to conceal his pain,Gaz'd on the fairWho caus'd his care,And sigh'd and look'd, sigh'd and look'd,Sigh'd and look'd, and sigh'd again;At length, with love and wine at once oppress'd,The vanquish'd victor sunk upon her breast.Now strike the golden lyre again;A louder yet, and yet a louder strain.Break his bands of sleep19asunder,And rouse him, like a rattling peal of thunder.Hark, hark, the horrid soundHas raised up his head!As awaked from the dead,And amaz'd he stares around.Revenge! revenge! Timotheus cries,See the Furies20arise:See the snakes that they rear,How they hiss in their hair,And the sparkles that flash from their eyes!Behold a ghastly band,Each a torch in his hand!Those are Grecian ghosts,21that in battle were slain,And unburied remainInglorious on the plain:Give the vengeance dueTo the valiant crew.22Behold how they toss their torches on high,How they point to the Persian abodes,And glittering temples of their hostile gods!The princes applaud with a furious joy;And the king seiz'd a flambeau with zeal to destroy;Thais led the way,23To light him to his prey,And like another Helen, fired another Troy.Chorus.And the king seiz'd a flambeau with zeal to destroy;Thais led the way,To light him to his prey,And like another Helen, fired another Troy.Thus, long ago,Ere heaving bellows learn'd to blow,While organs24yet were mute;Timotheus to his breathing flute,And sounding lyre,Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire.At last divine Cecilia came,Inventress of the vocal frame;25The sweet enthusiast, from her sacred store,Enlarged the former narrow bounds,And added length to solemn sounds,With Nature's mother-wit, and arts unknown before.Let old Timotheus yield the prize,Or both divide the crown:He rais'd a mortal to the skies;She drew an angel down.26Grand Chorus.At last divine Cecilia came,Inventress of the vocal frame;The sweet enthusiast, from her sacred store,Enlarged the former narrow bounds,And added length to solemn sounds,With Nature's mother-wit, and arts unknown before.Let old Timotheus yield the prize,Or both divide the crown:He rais'd a mortal to the skiesShe drew an angel down.

Chorus.Happy, happy, happy pair!None but the brave,None but the brave,None but the brave deserves the fair.

Timotheus,4placed on highAmid the tuneful quire,With flying fingers touched the lyre:The trembling notes ascend the sky,And heavenly joys inspire.The song began from Jove,5Who left his blissful seats above,(Such is the power of mighty love.)A dragon's fiery form belied the god:Sublime on radiant spires he rode.The listening crowd admire the lofty sound,A present deity,6they shout around;A present deity, the vaulted roofs rebound:With ravish'd earsThe monarch hears,Assumes the god,Affects to nod,7And seems to shake the spheres.

Chorus.With ravish'd earsThe monarch hears,Assumes the god,Affects to nod,And seems to shake the spheres.

The praise of Bacchus then, the sweet musician sung,Of Bacchus ever fair and ever young:The jolly god in triumph comes;Sound the trumpets; beat the drums;Flush'd with a purple grace,He shows his honest face:Now give the hautboys8breath; he comes! he comes!Bacchus, ever fair and young,Drinking joys did first ordain;Bacchus' blessings are a treasure,Drinking is the soldier's pleasure;Rich the treasure,Sweet the pleasure;Sweet is pleasure after pain.

Chorus.Bacchus' blessings are a treasure,Drinking is the soldier's pleasure;Rich the treasure,Sweet the pleasure;Sweet is pleasure after pain.

Sooth'd with the sound, the king grew vain;Fought all his battles o'er again;And thrice he routed all his foes; and thrice he slew the slain.9The master saw the madness rise;His glowing cheeks, his ardent eyes;And, while he Heaven and Earth defied,Changed his hand, and check'd his pride.He chose a mournful muse,Soft pity to infuse:He sung Darius10great and good,By too severe a fate,Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen,Fallen from his high estate,And welt'ring in his blood;Deserted at his utmost need,By those his former bounty fed:On the bare earth expos'd he lies,11With not a friend to close his eyes.12With downcast looks the joyless victor sate,Revolving in his alter'd soulThe various turns of chance below;And, now and then, a sigh he stole,13And tears began to flow.

Chorus.Revolving in his alter'd soulThe various turns of chance below;And, now and then, a sigh he stole,And tears began to flow.

The mighty master smil'd to seeThat love was in the next degree:'Twas but a kindred sound to move,For pity melts the mind to love.14Softly sweet, in Lydian15measures,Soon he sooth'd his soul to pleasures.War, he sung, is toil and trouble;Honor, but an empty bubble;16Never ending, still beginning,Fighting still, and still destroying;If the world be worth thy winning,Think, oh think it worth enjoying!Lovely Thais sits beside thee,Take the good the gods provide thee.The many17rend the air with loud applause;So Love was crown'd, but Music won the cause.The prince, unable to conceal his pain,Gaz'd on the fairWho caus'd his care,And sigh'd and look'd,18sigh'd and look'd,Sigh'd and look'd, and sigh'd again;At length, with love and wine at once oppress'd,The vanquish'd victor sunk upon her breast.

Chorus.The prince, unable to conceal his pain,Gaz'd on the fairWho caus'd his care,And sigh'd and look'd, sigh'd and look'd,Sigh'd and look'd, and sigh'd again;At length, with love and wine at once oppress'd,The vanquish'd victor sunk upon her breast.

Now strike the golden lyre again;A louder yet, and yet a louder strain.Break his bands of sleep19asunder,And rouse him, like a rattling peal of thunder.Hark, hark, the horrid soundHas raised up his head!As awaked from the dead,And amaz'd he stares around.Revenge! revenge! Timotheus cries,See the Furies20arise:See the snakes that they rear,How they hiss in their hair,And the sparkles that flash from their eyes!Behold a ghastly band,Each a torch in his hand!Those are Grecian ghosts,21that in battle were slain,And unburied remainInglorious on the plain:Give the vengeance dueTo the valiant crew.22Behold how they toss their torches on high,How they point to the Persian abodes,And glittering temples of their hostile gods!The princes applaud with a furious joy;And the king seiz'd a flambeau with zeal to destroy;Thais led the way,23To light him to his prey,And like another Helen, fired another Troy.

Chorus.And the king seiz'd a flambeau with zeal to destroy;Thais led the way,To light him to his prey,And like another Helen, fired another Troy.

Thus, long ago,Ere heaving bellows learn'd to blow,While organs24yet were mute;Timotheus to his breathing flute,And sounding lyre,Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire.At last divine Cecilia came,Inventress of the vocal frame;25The sweet enthusiast, from her sacred store,Enlarged the former narrow bounds,And added length to solemn sounds,With Nature's mother-wit, and arts unknown before.Let old Timotheus yield the prize,Or both divide the crown:He rais'd a mortal to the skies;She drew an angel down.26

Grand Chorus.At last divine Cecilia came,Inventress of the vocal frame;The sweet enthusiast, from her sacred store,Enlarged the former narrow bounds,And added length to solemn sounds,With Nature's mother-wit, and arts unknown before.Let old Timotheus yield the prize,Or both divide the crown:He rais'd a mortal to the skiesShe drew an angel down.

This song was written in 1697. Lord Bolingbroke relates that, calling upon the poet one morning, Dryden said to him: "I have been up all night; my musical friends made me promise to write them an ode for their Feast of St. Cecilia, and I was so struck with the subject which occurred to me that I could not leave it till I had completed it: here it is, finished at one sitting."

The poem was first set to music by one Jeremiah Clarke, a steward of the Musical Society, whose members had solicited Dryden to write it. In 1736 it was rearranged by the great composer Handel, and again presented at a public performance.

M. Taine says, "His 'Alexander's Feast' is an admirable trumpet-blast, in which metre and sound impress upon the nerves the emotions of the mind, a master-piece of rapture and of art, which Victor Hugo alone has come up to."

"As a piece of poetical mechanism to be set to music, or recited in alternate strophe and anti-strophe," says Hazlitt, "nothing can be better."

"This ode is Dryden's greatest and best work."—Macaulay.

1.royal feast.About the yearb.c.331, Alexander the Great, having overthrown the Persian Empire, held a great feast at Persepolis in celebration of his victories. At the close of the revelries, instigated, it is said, by Thais, his Athenian mistress, he set fire with his own hand to the great palace of Persepolis; and a general massacre of the inhabitants ensued.The ruins of the city and palace are still to be seen in a beautiful valley watered by the river Araxes—now called Bendemir—not far from the border of the Carmanian Desert.

2.with roses and with myrtles.At the banquets of the Greeks it was the custom of the guests to wear garlands of roses and myrtles.

3.Thais."Her name is best known from the story of her having stimulated the Conqueror, during a great festival at Persepolis, to set fire to the palace of the Persian kings; but this anecdote, immortalized as it has been by Dryden's famous ode, appears to rest on the sole authority of Cleitarchus, one of the least trustworthy of the historians of Alexander, and is in all probability a mere fable." After the death of Alexander, Thais became the wife of Ptolemy Lagus.

4.Timotheus.A famous flute-player from Thebes. Another and more celebrated Timotheus, "the poet of the later Athenian dithyramb," was a native of Miletus and died about the time of Alexander's birth.

5.Alexander claimed to be the son of Jupiter Ammon; and when he visited the temple of that god, in the Libyan Desert, he was received by the priests and honored as such. See Plutarch'sLife of Alexander.

6.present deity.See Psalm xlvi. 1.

7.affects to nod.See Homer's "Iliad." I, 528-530: "Jove spake, and nodded his dark brow, and the ambrosial locks waved from his immortal head; and he made great Olympus quake."

8.hautboys.Oboes. Frenchhautbois. Wind instruments resembling the clarionet.

Bacchus.Compare Shakespeare:

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