Who ere while the happy garden fung,
By one man's disobedience loft, now fing
Recover'd paradise to all mankind,
By one man's firm obedience fully try'd
Through all temptation, and the tempter foil'd
In all his wiles, defeated and repuls'd,
And Eden rais'd in the waste wilderness.
Thou spirit who ledft this glorious eremite
Into the defart, his victorious field
Against the spiritual foe, and brought'ft him thence
By proof the undoubted Son of God, infpire,
As thou art wont, my prompted fong elfe mute,
And bear through heighth or depth of nature's bounds
With profperous wing full fumm'd to tell of deeds
Above heroic, though in fecret done,
And unrecorded left through many an age,
Worthy t'have not remain'd so long unfung.
Now had the great proclaimer with a voice
More awful than the found of trumpet, cry'd
Repentance, and heaven's kingdom nigh at hand
To all baptiz'd: to his great baptism flock'd
With awe the regions round, and with them came
From Nazareth the son of Joseph deem'd
To the flood Jordan came, as then obfcure,
Unmarkt, unknown; but him the baptist soon