On the Death of Mr Purcell

1

Mark how the lark and linnet sing:
With rival notes
They strain their warbling throats,
To welcome in the spring.
But in the close of night,
When Philomel begins her heavenly lay,
They cease their mutual spite,
Drink in her music with delight,
And listening and silent, and silent and listening, and listening and silent, obey.

2

So ceased the rival crew, when Purcell came;
They sung no more, or only sung his fame:
Struck dumb, they all admired
The godlike man,
Alas! too soon retired,
As he too late began.
We beg not Hell our Orpheus to restore;
Had he been there,
Their sovereign’s fear
Had sent him back before.
The power of harmony too well they knew;
He long ere this had tuned their jarring sphere,
And left no Hell below.

3

The heavenly choir, who heard his notes from high,
Let down the scale of music from the sky;
They handed him along,
And all the way he taught and all the way they sung.
Ye brethren of the lyre, and tuneful voice,
Lament his lot; but at your own rejoice:
Now live secure, and linger out your days;
The gods are pleased alone with Purcell’s lays,
Nor know to mend their choice.

This ode by John Dryden (1631-1700) commemorates the death, and celebrates the short life, of the English composer Henry Purcell (1659-1695). The poem is freely constructed in that no metrical patterning is identical across every verse. Iambic pentameter, trimeter and dimeter lines are interwoven and variously rhymed in each, producing a musical effect enhanced by the line indentations. The latter can’t be reproduced in the Poem of the week format but they are present in this modernised text, my source for the poem.

What I particularly liked in this version is the skipping rhythm of the last line in the first verse, lost if that line is divided into two (as in some variants). When the nightingale Philomel begins her “heavenly lay” the rival lark and linnet are alternatively “… listening and silent, and silent and listening, and listening and silent …” They’re not merely acquiescent: the dactylic melody of the line suggests both the nightingale’s flood of song and the thrill of “delight” the lark and linnet feel. Dryden’s avian setting, “the close of night,” seems to gesture towards the concert rooms of Restoration London, the attentiveness of the composer’s new audiences mirroring that of the birds.

Dryden’s imaginary settings are never entirely predictable, and in the second verse he makes a daringly playful move for an elegist, and considers his subject’s appearance in hell. This hell seems to be a Greek construction, rather than a Christian, although the use of the epithet “heavenly” in verses 1 and 3 suggests Dryden is keeping in mind his modern audience’s conventional expectations of the afterlife.

As in the woodland close, in hell the “godlike man” is appreciated by its occupants. However, Dryden reminds us, Purcell isn’t there. “Had he been there, / Their sovereign’s fear / Had sent him back before.” Henry Purcell’s powers have already found their way to “tune” the “jarring sphere” – a hyperbolic figure, of course, but nonetheless emotionally convincing. Purcell had set to music some of the songs in Dryden’s plays, and Dryden had written the libretto for Purcell’s opera King Arthur. The poet had a deep personal admiration for the composer’s genius, and knew how much it helped “tune” the complex and sometimes chaotic theatrical process.

Dryden’s concluding verse of celebration takes a more formal turn, but there are still some images worth noting. The “scale of music” is visualised as a kind of stairway, let down from the sky by the “heavenly choir”, and Purcell’s ascent is tenderly imagined: “They handed him along, / And all the way he taught and all the way they sung.” Note how the exchange of teaching and singing is granted the extra space of a line of hexameter, and how the phrase “hand him along” suggests the action of a stately dance. Dryden resists being overcome by piety towards the gods even now. The “heavenly choir” clearly has nothing left to teach “our Orpheus” about music.

In the last five lines of the verse, “Ye brethren of the lyre and tuneful voice” addresses the living composers and performers, who may now enjoy in Restoration culture a wealth of opportunity to enrich their talents and their careers. Not that the composers are allowed any consolation. Flatly, the elegist insists “The gods are pleased alone with Purcell’s lays.” And the last line rubs it in: the immortal impresarios are not going to change their minds.

Dryden’s ode was set to music by his admiring one-time tutor, the composer and organist Dr John Blow: an arrangement can be heard here.