Her feast day became an occasion for musical concerts and festivals that occasioned many poems and musical compositions.
The most famous being poems by John Dryden and Alexander Pope. Pope's poem Ode on St Cecilia's Day expresses the power of music to sooth the soul.
By Music, minds an equal temper know,
Nor swell too high, nor sink too low.
If in the breast tumultuous joys arise,
Music her soft, assuasive voice applies;
Or when the soul is press'd with cares,
Exalts her in enlivening airs.
Warriors she fires with animated sounds;
Pours balm into the bleeding lover's wounds:
Melancholy lifts her head,
Morpheus rouzes from his bed,
Sloth unfolds her arms and wakes,
List'ning Envy drops her snakes;
Intestine war no more our Passions wage,
And giddy Factions hear away their rage.
Henry Purcell composed an Ode to St. Cecilia and George Frideric Handel another Ode for St. Cecilia's Day.
Herbert Howells' A Hymn to Saint Cecilia has words by Ursula Vaughan Williams.
In Chaucer's The Second Nun's Tale of The Canterbury Tales, the nun tells the story of Cecilia:
Right so faire Cecile the white
Ful swifte and bisy evere in good werkynge
And brennynge in charitie ful brighte.
Music plays a huge part in our lives so it's fitting to take a moment to celebrate the patron saint of music on her special day.