Our willing soul resigns to thee,
Thou tun'st its passions to thy harmony;
By thee 'tis led at every turn,

And even joys with thee to mourn ;

Quick as its thoughts at every sound flies out,

And hovers o'er the trembling accent of each dying note.

GRAND CHORUS.

To Music and Cecilia's name
Let every year return the same:
Whilst we the praise of both rehearse
In sounding accents, grateful verse;
And, in those praises that we give,
We ourselves shall joyful live.

ODE IL

ON

ST. CECILIA's DAY.

BY JOHN OLDHAM, B. A.

1.

BEGIN the song, your instruments advance,
Tune the voice, and tune the flute,
Touch the silent sleeping lute,

And make the strings to their own measures dance.
Bring gentlest thoughts that into language glide,
Bring softest words that into numbers slide:
Let every hand and every tongue

To make the noble concert throng

Let all in one harmonious note agree
To frame the mighty song,

For this is Music's sacred jubilee.

II.

Hark, how the waken'd strings resound,
And break the yielding air!

The ravish'd sense how pleasingly they wound,
And call the listening soul into the ear!

Each pulse beats time, and every heart With tongue and fingers bears a part.

By Harmony's entrancing power, When we are thus wound up to ecstacy;

Methinks we mount, methinks we tour, And seem to antedate our future bliss on high.

III.

How dull were life, how hardly worth our care,
But for the charms that Music lends!
How faint its pleasures would appear,
But for the pleasure which our art attends!
Without the sweets of melody,

To tune our vital breath,

Who would not give it up to death,

And in the silent grave contented lie!

IV.

Music's the cordial of a troubled breast,
The softest remedy that grief can find;
The greatest spell that charms our care to rest,
And calms the ruffled passions of the mind.
Music does all our joy refine,

It gives the relish to our wine,

'Tis that gives rapture to our love,

And wings devotion to a pitch divine;

'Tis our chief bliss on earth, and half our Heaven above.

CHORUS.

Come then, with tuneful throat and string,

The praises of our art let's sing;

Let's sing to blest CECILIA's fame,

That grac'd this art, and gave this day its name;

With music, wine and mirth conspire

To bear a concert, and make up the choir!

ODE III.

ON

ST. CECILIA's DAY.

BY THO. SHADWELL, ESQ. 1690.

O sacred Harmony, prepare our lays,
While, on Cecilia's day, we sing your praise,
From Earth to Heaven our warbling voices raise !

Join, all ye glorious instruments around,
The yielding air with your vibrations wound,
And fill Heaven's conclave with the mighty sound.

You did at first the warring atoms join,
Made qualities most opposite combine,
While discords did with pleasing concords twine.

The universe you fram'd, you still sustain ;
Without you, what in tune does now remain
Would jangle into chaos once again.

It does your most transcendent glory prove,
That, to complete immortal joys above,