Ye Sacred Muses is William Byrd's Musical elegy on the death of his colleague and sometime mentor, Thomas Tallis. It is scored for 5 vv (usually four viols and countertenor).
The words are:-
- Ye sacred Muses, race of Jove,
- whom Music's lore delighteth,
- Come down from crystal heav'ns above
- to earth where sorrow dwelleth,
- In mourning weeds, with tears in eyes:
- Tallis is dead, and Music dies.
The concluding lines are particularly effective and are repeated.
Famous quotes containing the words sacred and/or muses:
“the sacred few who could not tame
Their spirits to the conquerors—”
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)
“Who knows but this hill may one day be a Helvellyn, or even a Parnassus, and the Muses haunt here, and other Homers frequent the neighboring plains?... It was a place where gods might wander, so solemn and solitary, and removed from all contagion with the plain.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)