SATB
Text
ODE ON ST. CECILIA’S DAY
(excerpt)
-Christopher Smart
From your lyre-enchanted towers,
Ye musically mystic Powers,
Ye, that inform the tuneful spheres,
Inaudible to mortal ears,
While each orb in ether swims
Accordant to th’ inspiring hymns;
Hither Paradise remove,
Spirits of Harmony and Love!
Shall Echo from her vocal cave
Repay each note the shepherd gave,
And shall not we our mistress praise,
And give her back the borrow’d lays?
Higher swell the sound and higher:
Let the winged numbers climb:
To the heaven of heavens aspire,
Solemn, sacred, and sublime:
From heaven Music took its rise,
Return it to its native skies.
Hail, harmonious virgin, hail!
When Death shall blot out every name,
And Time shall break the trump of Fame,
Angels may listen to thy lute:
Thy power shall last, thy bays shall bloom,
When tongues shall cease, and worlds consume,
And all the tuneful spheres be mute.
Hail, Cecilia, hail!