What woful stuff this madrigal would be
In some starv'd hackney sonnetteer, or me!
But let a Lord once own the happy lines,
How the wit brightens! how the style refines!
Light quirks of music, broken and uneven,
Make the soul dance upon a jig to Heav'n.
By music minds an equal temper know,
Nor swell too high, nor sink too low.
Warriors she fires with animated sounds.
Pours balm into the bleeding lover's wounds.
| author = Pope
| work = Ode on St. Cecilia's Day.
Hark! the numbers soft and clear,
Gently steal upon the ear;
Now louder, and yet louder rise
And fill with spreading sounds the skies.
| author = Pope
| work = Ode on St. Cecilia's Day.
In a sadly pleasing strain
Let the warbling lute complain.
| author = Pope
| work = Ode on St. Cecilia's Day.
Music's force can tame the furious beast.
Prior.
| seealso = (See also Bramston)
| topic = Music
| page = 539
}}
{{Hoyt quote
| num =
| text = <poem>Seated one day at the organ,
I was weary and ill at ease,
And my fingers wandered idly
Over the noisy keys.
I do not know what I was playing,
Or what I was dreaming then,
But I struck one chord of music
Like the sound of a great Amen.
Adelaide A. Procter—Lost Chord. (Asset
to music, 5th line reads, "I know not what
I was playing.