Yet on his brothers shall depend for clothing.
To find a foe it shall not be his hap,

And peace shall lull him in her flow'ry lap;
Yet shall he live in strife, and at his door
Devouring war shall never cease to roar;
Yea it shall be his natural property

To harbour those that are at enmity.

85

What pow'r, what force, what mighty spell, if not Your learned hands, can loose this Gordian knot?

The next QUANTITY and QUALITY spake in prose; then RELATION was called by his

name.

RIVERS, arise; whether thou be the son

91

95

Of utmost Tweed, or Oose, or gulphy Dun,
Or Trent, who like some earth-born giant spreads
His thirty arms along th' indented meads,
Or sullen Mole that runneth underneath,
Or Severn swift, guilty of maiden's death,
Or rocky Avon, or of sedgy Lce,
Or coaly Tine, or ancient hallow'd Dee,

Or Humber loud that keeps the Scythian's name,
Or Medway smooth, or royal tower'd Thame. 100

[The rest was prose.]

94 indented] Sylvester's Du Bartas, D. iii. W. 1. 'Our silver Medway which doth deepe indent The flowerie meadowes of my native Kent.' 98 hallow'd] 'holy Dee.' Randolph's Poems, p. 48, ed. 1640.

Warton.

Todd.

ON THE MORNING OF CHRIST'S NATIVITY.

I.

THIS is the month, and this the happy morn,
Wherein the Son of heav'n's eternal king,
Of wedded Maid, and Virgin Mother born,
Our great redemption from above did bring;
For so the holy sages once did sing,

That he our deadly forfeit should release,
And with his Father work us a perpetual peace.

II.

That glorious form, that light unsufferable,
And that far-beaming blaze of majesty,

5

Wherewith he wont at heav'n's high council-table To sit the midst of Trinal Unity,

He laid aside; and here with us to be,

Forsook the courts of everlasting day,

11

And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay.

III.

Say, heav'nly Muse, shall not thy sacred vein
Afford a present to the Infant God?

Hast thou no verse, no hymn, or solemn strain,
To welcome him to this his new abode,

15

Now while the heav'n by the sun's team untrod, Hath took no print of the approaching light, 20 And all the spangled host keep watch in squadrons bright?

IV.

See how from far upon the eastern road
The star-led wisards haste with odours sweet:
O run, prevent them with thy humble ode,
And lay it lowly at his blessed feet;
Have thou the honour first thy Lord to greet,

25

And join thy voice unto the Angel quire, From out his secret altar touch'd with hallow'd fire.

19 sun's team] Henry IV. P. I. act iii. sc. 4. 'heavenly-harness'd team.'

Todd.

23 star-led] 'The starre-led sages that would Christ behold.' Bancroft's Sec. B. of Epigrams, Ep. 228. Todd. Storer's Life of Wolsey, p. 21.

'When wise magicians wandered far awide

To find the place of our Messiah's birth.'

23 wisards] Spenser's F. Q. iv. xii. 2. 'antique wisards.' i. iv. 12. 'and strong advizement of six wizards old.' Warton. 'The Syracusan wizard did invent.' Storer's Life of Wolsey, p. 12. And Fitz-Geffrey's Holy Raptures, p. 37. 17.

While the heav'n-born child

All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies; Nature in awe to him

Had dofft her gaudy trim,

With her great Master so to sympathize: It was no season then for her

To wanton with the sun, her lusty paramour.

Only with speeches fair

She woos the gentle air

II.

To hide her guilty front with innocent snow And on her naked shame,

Pollute with sinful blame,

The saintly veil of maiden white to throw, Confounded that her Maker's eyes

Should look so near upon her foul deformities.

III.

But he her fears to cease,

Sent down the meek-ey'd Peace;

45

[sliding

She, crown'd with olive green, came softly

Down through the turning sphere

His ready harbinger,

With turtle wing the amorous clouds dividing; 50

And waving wide her myrtle wand,

She strikes a universal peace through sea and land.

IV.

Nor war, or battle's sound

Was heard the world around:

The idle spear and shield were high up hung, The hooked chariot stood

Unstain'd with hostile blood,

The trumpet spake not to the armed throng, And kings sat still with awful eye,

56

As if they surely knew their sov'reign Lord was by.

V.

But peaceful was the night,

Wherein the Prince of light

His reign of peace upon the earth began: The winds with wonder whist

Smoothly the waters kist,

Whisp'ring new joys to the mild ocean,

61

65

The ayre is cleere, and

Todd.

64 whist] Nash's Dido, 1594. southerne windes are whist.' 'The waters whist.' 'Winds whist.'

Golding's Ovid, p. 63.
Aylet's Divine Poems,

p. 65. 'If the winde be whist.' Marlowe's Hero and Leander, p. 13. 'far from the toure, when all is whist and still.' And see S. Hardinge's Com. Verses to W. Browne, from MS. in Beloe's Anecd. vi. 68.

'The winds that erst were whist

Beginne to roare,

Each tree, your songes beinge mist,

Shreeks as before.