The speaker calls on music to take over his senses completely. He longs to be moved through a sequence of intense emotional states. At first, he wants a gentle, enchanting melody that will touch him so deeply it brings tears. Then he craves a wild, fiery rhythm—his spirits flung into a frantic ecstasy by the player’s racing hand on the lyre. But the ride doesn’t end there. Just as suddenly, he asks the music to sink into a soft, silvery strain, one that will soothe him like balm and oil, leaving him utterly calm and smooth. The poem creates a mood of delicious surrender, as if the listener is offering himself up to be sculpted by sound. In just six lines, Herrick captures the way music can sweep through us—a wave that lifts, shakes, and then gently sets us down again.
TO MUSIC — Summary
Begin to charm, and as thou strok'st mine ears With thine enchantment, melt me into tears. Then let thy active hand scud o'er thy lyre, And make my spirits frantic with the fire; That done, sink down into a silvery strain, And make me smooth as balm and oil again.