Page:Pleasures of England (1888).djvu/121

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Cœur de Lion to Elizabeth.
103

illustrated with a miniature of Cecilia sitting silent at a banquet, where all manner of musicians are playing. I need not point out to you how the law, not of sacred music only, so called, but of all music, is determined by this sentence; which means in effect that unless music exalt and purify, it is not under St. Cecilia's ordinance, and it is not, virtually, music at all.

Her confessed power at last expires amidst a hubbub of odes and sonatas; and I suppose her presence at a Morning Popular is as little anticipated as desired. Unconfessed, she is of all the mythic saints for ever the greatest; and the child in its nurse's arms, and every tender and gentle spirit which resolves to purify in itself,—as the eye for seeing, so the ear for hearing,—may still, whether behind the Temple veil,[1] or at the fireside, and by the wayside, hear Cecilia sing.

  1. "But, standing in the lowest place,
    And mingled with the work-day crowd,
    A poor man looks, with lifted face,
    And hears the Angels cry aloud.

    "He seeks not how each instant flies,
    One moment is Eternity;
    His spirit with the Angels cries
    To Thee, to Thee, continually.

    "What if, Isaiah-like, he know
    His heart be weak, his lips unclean,
    His nature vile, his office low,
    His dwelling find his people mean?

    "To such the Angels spake of old—
    To such of yore, the glory came;
    These altar fires can ne'er grow cold:
    Then be it his, that cleansing flame."

    These verses, part of a very lovely poem, "To Thee all Angels cry aloud."