Stephen Duck (Стивен Дак)

On Music

I.

MUSIC the coldest Heart can warm,
 The hardest melt, the fiercest charm;
 Disarm the Savage of his Rage,
 Dispel our Cares, and Pains assuage;
 With Joy it can our Souls inspire,
 And tune our Tempers to the Lyre;
 Our Passions, like the Notes, agree,
 And stand subdu'd by Harmony. 
This found the melancholy King,
 When DAVID tun'd the trembling String:
 Sweet MUSIC chas'd the sullen Spleen away,
 And made his clouded Soul serenely gay. 

II.

WHILE MUSIC breathes in Martial Airs,
 The Coward durst forget his Fears;
 Or, if the Notes to Pity sound,
 Revenge and Envy cease to wound:
 The Pow'r of MUSIC has been known
 To raise or tumble Cities down:
 Thus Theban Turrets, Authors say,
 Were rais'd by MUSIC's magic Lay;
 And ancient Jericho's Heav'n-hated Wall,
 To sacred MUSIC, ow'd its destin'd Fall. 

III.

NOR Mortals only MUSIC love;
 It chears celestial Saints above:
 Sweet Hallelujahs Angels sing
 Around their great Ethereal KING;
 Ceasless they sound the FATHER's Praise,
 The FATHER too approves their Lays;
 For HE (as all Things) MUSIC made,
 And SERAPHIMS before Him play'd:
 When over Horeb's Mount He came,
 Array'd in Majesty and Flame;
 After the sounding Trump, sublime, He rode;
 The sounding Trump proclaim'd th'approaching GOD. 

IV.

MUSIC had Being, long before
 The solemn Organ learnt to roar:
 When MICHAEL, o'er the heav'nly Plain,
 Advanc'd, to fight the rebel Train;
 Loud Trumpets did his Wrath declare,
 In MUSIC, terrible to hear:
 And when the Universe was made,
 On golden Harps the Angels play'd:
 And when it falls, (as fall it must)
 MUSIC shall penetrate the Dust;
 The Trump shall sound with the Archangel's Breath;
 And, sweetly dreadful! wake the Dead from Death.

1. To the Author of a Poem on the Duke of Lorrain's Arrival at the British Court
2. Gratitude
3. Chloe's Conquest
4. On the Marriage of His Serene Highness the Prince of Orange
5. The Absent Lover

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