For if such holy song

Enwrap our fancy long,

14.

Time will run back, and fetch the age of gold;

135

And speckl'd Vanity frivolity, rotility of human with on

Will sicken soon and die,

And leprous Sin will melt from earthly mould;
And Hell itself will pass away,

And leave her dolorous mansions to the peering day.

15.

Yea Truth, and Justice then

141

Will down return to men,

and like glories wearing

lucked Orb'd in a rainbow; enclosed

Mercy will sit between,

Thron'd in celestial sheen, brightness

With radiant feet the tissu'a clouds down steering;
And Heav'n as at some festival

Will open wide the gates of her high palace hall.

But wisest Fate says no,

This must not yet be so,

16.

145

150

While the red fire and smouldring clouds out brake:
The aged Earth agast

With terror of that blast,

Shall from the surface to the centre shake;

When at the world's last session, . P.%. 11,514.

160

The dreadful Judge in middle air shall spread his throne.

18.

And then at last our bliss

Full and perfect is,

But now begins; for from this happy day
Th' old Dragon under ground

In straiter limits bound,

Not half so far casts his usurped sway;
And wrath to see his kingdom fail,

Swindges the scaly horror of his folded tail.

swinging

19.

The oracles are dumb, oracles

No voice or hideous hum

are

165

170

here used for

Terror. supposes.

to cease

from the time of the birth of

Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving. 175 6hrist

Apollo from his shrine

Can no more divine,

With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving.

No nightly trance, or breathed spell,

refere Inspires the pale-ey'd priest from the prophetic cell. 180

to Pythian cracke

ме

You

priest

20. This stangs expert Millen

The lonely mountains o'er,

And the resounding shore,

anything better

A voice of weeping heard, and loud lament;
From haunted spring, and dale

Edg'd with poplar pale,

The parting genius is with sighing sent.

With flower-inwov'n tresses torn

departing

The nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn.

In consecrated earth,

And on the holy hearth,

21.

The Lars, and Lemures moan with midnight plaint;

In urns, and altars round,

A drear and dying sound

190

quaint; strange to

Affrights the Flamens at their service
And the chill marble seems to sweat,
While each peculiar power forgoes his wonted seat.

VOL. I.

in general

C

195

of them.

With that twice-batter'd god of Palestine; a go. And mooned Ashtaroth, ebrew name for Astarte, the 200 Synan aphor dite.

Heav'ns queen and mother both,

Now sits not girt with tapers' holy shine;

egypt The Libyc Hammon shrinks his horn,

deity

In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz mourn.

23.

And sullen Moloch fled, Ste.

Hath left in shadows dread,

Adonis

205

His burning idol all of blackest hue;
In vain with cymbals' ring,

They call the grisly king,

In dismal dance about the furnace blue;

The brutish gods of Nile as fast,

210

The dog-got. of the earth.

got Isis and Orus, and the dog Anubis haste, they got.
the wife of Stiria, and food dece
the hill go d

there is

Nor is Osiris seen

24.

In Memphian grove, or green,

Trampling the unshowr'd grass with lowings loud; 215

little rain Nor can he be at rest

by Within his sacred chest,

in legypt.

Naught but profoundest Hell can be his shroud;

In vain with timbrell'd anthems dark

The sable-stoled sorcerers bear his worshipt ark.

220

25,

He feels from Juda's land

The dreaded Infant's hand,

The rays of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyn;
Nor all the gods beside

Longer dare abide,

Not Typhon huge ending in snaky twine:
Our Babe, to show his Godhead true,

Can in his swaddling bands control the damned crew.

225

Each fetter'd ghost slips to his several grave; And the yellow-skirted fays

235

Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-lov'd maze.

But see the Virgin blest,

27.

Hath laid her Babe to rest.

Time is our tedious song should here have ending: Heav'ns youngest teemed star,

Hath fixt her polisht car,

Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending. And all about the courtly stable,

Bright-harnest angels sit in order serviceable.

240

brightan

UPON THE CIRCUMCISION.

(1630.)

YE flaming powers, and winged warriors bright,
That erst with music, and triumphant song
First heard by happy watchful shepherds' ear,
So sweetly sung your joy the clouds along
Through the soft silence of the list'ning night,
Now mourn; and if sad share with us to bear
Your fiery essence can distil no tear,
Burn in your sighs, and borrow

Seas wept from our deep sorrow;

He who with all Heav'ns heraldry whilere

Enter'd the world, now bleeds to give us ease;
Alas, how soon our sin

Sore doth begin

His infancy to seize!

5

ΙΟ

O more exceeding love, or law more just?
Just law indeed, but more exceeding love!
For we by rightful doom remediless
Were lost in death, till he that dwelt above
High thron'd in secret bliss, for us frail dust
Emptied his glory, ev'n to nakedness;

And that great cov'nant which we still transgress
Entirely satisfi'd,

And the full wrath beside

Of vengeful Justice bore for our excess,

And seals obedience first with wounding smart
This day; but O ere long,

Huge pangs and strong

Will pierce more near his heart.

THE PASSION.

(1630.)

EREWHILE of music, and ethereal mirth,
Wherewith the stage of air and earth did ring,
And joyous news of Heav'nly Infant's birth,
My muse with angels did divide to sing;

But headlong joy is ever on the wing;

In wintry solstice like the short'nd light,

Soon swallow'd up in dark and long out-living night.

15

20

25

5

For now to sorrow must I tune my song,

And set my harp to notes of saddest woe,

Which on our dearest Lord did seize ere long;

10

Dangers, and snares, and wrongs, and worse than so,
Which he for us did freely undergo.

Most perfect hero, tri'd in heaviest plight

Of labours huge and hard, too hard for human wight!

He sovran priest, stooping his regal head
That dropt with odorous oil down his fair eyes,
Poor fleshly tabernacle entered,

His starry front low-rooft beneath the skies;

O what a mask was there, what a disguise!

15