Six Centuries of English Poetry Part 23

"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 aeneas, 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, page 166.

22. =Quality.= Persons of high rank.

ODE ON ST. CECILIA'S DAY.

MDCCVIII.

I.

Descend, ye Nine!{1} descend and sing; The breathing instruments inspire, Wake into voice each silent string, And sweep the sounding lyre!

In a sadly pleasing strain,{2} Let the warbling lute complain: Let the loud trumpet sound, Till the roofs all around The shrill echoes rebound; While in more lengthen'd notes and slow, The deep, majestic, solemn organs blow.

Hark! the numbers soft and clear Gently 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.

II.

By music, minds an equal temper know,{3} Nor swell too high, nor sink too low.

If in the breast tumultuous joys arise, Music her soft, a.s.suasive{4} voice 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 pa.s.sions wage, And giddy factions hear away their rage.

III.

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,{5} While Argo saw her kindred trees Descend from Pelion to the main.

Transported demi-G.o.ds{6} stood 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!

IV.

But when, through all the infernal bounds{7} Which flaming Phlegethon surrounds, Love, strong as death,{8} the poet led To 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 forms{9} advance!

Thy stone, O Sisyphus, stands still,{10} Ixion 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.

V.

By the streams that ever flow, By the fragrant winds that blow O'er the Elysian flowers; By those happy souls who dwell In 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 h.e.l.l{11} consented To hear the poet's prayer; Stern Proserpine relented, And gave him back the fair.

Thus song could prevail O'er death and o'er h.e.l.l, A conquest how hard and how glorious!

Though fate had fast bound her With Styx nine times round her, Yet music and love were victorious.{12}

VI.

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,{13} Despairing, confounded, He trembles, he glows, Amidst Rhodope's{14} snows: See, wild as the winds, o'er the desert he flies; Hark! Haemus resounds with the Baccha.n.a.ls' 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.

VII.

Music{15} the 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 h.e.l.l, Hers lift the soul to heaven.{16}

NOTES.

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 page 159).

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 compet.i.tors. Dryden's plan is better chosen; history will always take stronger hold of the pa.s.sions than fable: the pa.s.sions 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 pa.s.ses of the mind. Both the odes want the essential const.i.tuent 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 lilie Corones two, the which he bare in honde, And first to Cecile, as I understonde, He yaf that on, and after gan he take That 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 G.o.d alone thus in hire hert song she; 'O Lord, my soule and eke my body gie Unwemmed, 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 page 164). 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) Terpsich.o.r.e, 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 man Who, having overthrown the sacred town Of Ilium, wandered far," etc.