A SONG. For St. CECILIA's Day at Oxford,

C

I.

ECILIA, whofe exalted hymns

With joy and wonder fill the bleft,

In choirs of warbling feraphims

Known and distinguish'd from the rest,

Attend, harmonious faint, and fee

Thy vocal fons of harmony;

Attend, harmonious faint, and hear our pray❜rs;

Enliven all our earthly airs,

[thee:

And, as thou fing'ft thy God, teach us to fing of

Tune ev'ry string and ev'ry tongue,

Be thou the Muse and fubject of our fong.

II.

Let all Cecilia's praise proclaim,
Employ the echo in her name.

Hark

Hark how the flutes and trumpets raife,

At bright Cecilia's name, their lays;

The organ labours in her praise.

Cecilia's name does all our numbers grace,
From ev'ry voice the tuneful accents fly,
In foaring trebles now it rises high,

And now it finks, and dwells upon the base.
Cecilia's name through all the notes we fing,
The work of ev'ry skilful tongue,

The found of ev'ry trembling ftring,

The found and triumph of our fong.

III.

For ever confecrate the day,

To mufic and Cecilia;

Mufic, the greatest good that mortals know,

And all of heav'n we have below.

Music can noble hints impart,

Engender fury, kindle love;
With unfufpected eloquence can move,
And manage all the man with fecret art.
When Orpheus ftrikes the trembling lyre,
The ftreams ftand ftill, the ftones admire;

The

The lift'ning favages advance,

The wolf and lamb around him trip,
The bears in aukward measures leap,
And tigers mingle in the dance.

The moving woods attended as he play'd,
And Rhodope was left without a shade.

IV.

Mufic religious heats inspires,

It wakes the foul, and lifts it high, And wings it with fublime defires, And fits it to bespeak the deity.

Th' Almighty liftens to a tuneful tongue,

And feems well-pleas'd and courted with a fong.

Soft moving founds and heav'nly airs

[pray❜rs. Give force to ev'ry word, and recommend our

When time itself fhall be no more,

And all things in confufion hurl'd,

Mufic fhall then exert its pow'r,

And found furvive the ruins of the world:

Then faints and angels fhall agree

In one eternal jubilee:

All

All heav'n fhall echo with their hymns divine,

And God himself with pleasure fee

The whole creation in a chorus join.

CHORUS.

Confecrate the place and day,

To mufic and Cecilia.

Let no rough winds approach, nor dare
Invade the hallow'd bounds,

Nor rudely shake the tuneful air,

Nor spoil the fleeting founds.

Nor mournful figh nor groan be heard,

But gladness dwell on ev'ry tongue; Whilst all, with voice and ftrings prepar'd,

Keep up the loud harmonious fong,

And imitate the bleft above,

In joy, and harmony, and love,

XXXX

XXX

淡淡

An

An ACCOUNT of the Greatest English Pô ET S.

To Mr. Henry Sacheverell*, April 3, 1694.

INCE, dearest Harry, you will needs request

SINC

A fhort account of all the mufe-poffeft,

That, down from Chaucer's days to Dryden's times,
Have spent their noble rage in British rhimes;
Without more preface, writ in formal length,
To speak the undertaker's want of ftrength,
I'll try to make their fev'ral beauties known,
And fhow their verfes worth, tho' not my own.
Long had our dull forefathers flept fupine,
Nor felt the raptures of the tuneful nine;
'Till Chaucer firft, a merry bard, arose,

And many a story told in rhime, and profe.

But

age has rufted with the poet writ, Worn out his language, and obfcur'd his wit:

* Afterwards Doctor Sacheverell.

In