Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. II. The Seventeenth Century: Ben Jonson to Dryden

Thomas Stanley (1625–1678)

Celia Singing

ROSES in breathing forth their scent,

Or stars their borrowed ornament,

Nymphs in the watery sphere that move,

Or angels in their orbs above,

The wingèd chariot of the light,

Or the slow silent wheels of night,

The shade which from the swifter sun

Doth in a circular motion run,

Or souls that their eternal rest do keep,

Make far less noise than Celia’s breath in sleep.

But if the Angel, which inspires

This subtle flame with active fires,

Should mould this breath to words, and those

Into a harmony dispose,

The music of this heavenly sphere

Would steal each soul out at the ear,

And into plants and stones infuse

A life that Cherubim would choose,

And with new powers invert the laws of fate,

Kill those that live, and dead things animate.