[ { "title": "Ode on St Cecilia's Day,", "author": "Alexander Pope", "lines": [ " Descend, ye Nine! descend and sing;", " The breathing instruments inspire,", " Wake into voice each silent string,", " And sweep the sounding lyre;", " In a sadly-pleasing strain", " 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.", "", " By Music, minds an equal temper know,", " Nor swell too high, nor sink too low.", " If in the breast tumultuous joys arise,", " Music her soft, assuasive 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 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,", " While Argo saw her kindred trees", " Descend from Pelion to the main.", " Transported demigods stood round,", " And men grew heroes at the sound,", " Inflamed with glory's charms:", " Each chief his sevenfold shield display'd,", " And half unsheath'd the shining blade:", " And seas, and rocks, and skies rebound,", " 'To arms, to arms, to arms!'", "", " But when through all the infernal bounds,", " Which flaming Phlegethon surrounds,", " Love, strong as death, the poet led", " To the pale nations of the dead,", " What sounds were heard,", " What scenes appear'd,", " O'er all the dreary coasts!", " 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 advance!", " Thy stone, O Sisyphus! stands still,", " 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.", "", " '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 hero's armèd 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 hell 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 hell,", " 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.", "", " 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,", " Despairing, confounded,", " He trembles, he glows,", " Amidst Rhodope's snows:", " See, wild as the winds, o'er the desert he flies;", " Hark! Haemus 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.", "", " Music 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 hell,", " Hers lift the soul to heaven." ], "linecount": "134" } ]