Odes of Horace, Book 5/Ode 14
XIV
YE moulders of musical numbers,
Serene and celestial Nine,
Awake from your perilous slumbers,
Strange enemies threaten your shrine.
Despising the joyance of living
They hold, in their haughty disdain,
That genius consists in the giving
Of infinite pain.
From Greece, though her prowess has perished,
Not yet had her nightingales flown
When her conquerors honoured and cherished
Her music and made it their own.
But scorning these delicate treasures
Our minstrels have turned to the East
For ragged and barbarous measures
At dance and at feast.
No longer content with the mellow
And exquisite tones of the lute
They take for their model the bellow
And howl of the man-eating brute.
And, enamoured of mammoth dimensions,
To strengthen the strings and the wind
They borrow the monstrous inventions
Of Egypt and Ind.
And still, as they rabidly rush on
To spread the dominion of din,
They multiply means of percussion—
Brass, iron, and copper, and skin.
For melodies simple and tender
They reckon as infantile joys,
And worship the strenuous splendour
Of absolute Noise.
From trumpets that pierce like an arrow,
And freeze all the brains in my skull,
From cymbals that curdle my marrow
I long for a merciful lull.
There are times for a mood Corybantic;
In season 'tis sweet to be sad;
But an art that is constantly frantic
Or dismal, is bad.
Our ears have been brutally battered
With volleys of virulent sound;
Our senses are cruelly shattered
With shocks that amaze and astound.
O hasten from Pindus or Haemus,
Come down, you have lingered too long,
Come down, and from Discord redeem us,
Dear Sisters of Song!