III.

15

He fov'ran 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!

Yet more; the stroke of death he must abide,
Then lies him meekly down fast by his brethrens side.

20

IV.

These latest scenes confine my roving verse,
To this horizon is my Phoebus bound;
His Godlike acts, and his temptations fierce,
And former sufferings other where are found;
Loud o'er the rest Cremona's trump doth sound;

Me softer airs befit, and softer strings
Of lute, or viol ftill, more apt for mournful things.

25

Befriend me Night, best patronefs of grief,
Over the pole thy thickest mantle throw,

30

And 26. Loud o'er the rest Cremona's trump doth ludes particularly to his poem, Christiados found;] He means Marcus Hieronymus Libri sex.

And Mantua the birth-place of Vida, who was a native of Cremona, and al- Virgil being near to Cremona, Virg. EcI. IX. 28.

Mantua

X X 2

M

And work my flatter'd fancy to belief,
That Heav'n and Earth are color'd with my woe;
My sorrows are too dark for day to know:

The leaves should all be black whereon I write, 34
And letters where my tears have wash'd a wannish white.

VI.

See, see the chariot, and those rushing wheels,
That whirld the Prophet up at Chebar flood,
My spirit some transporting Cherub feels,
To bear me where the tow'rs of Salem stood,
Once glorious tow'rs, now sunk in guiltless blood; 40

There doth my soul in holy vision sit
In pensive trance, and anguish, and ecstatic fit.

VII.

Mine eye hath found that fad fepulchral rock
That was the casket of Heav'n's richest store,
And here though grief my feeble hands up lock, 45
Yet on the softend quarry would I score

My

My plaining verse as lively as before;

For fure fo well instructed are my tears,
That they would fitly fall in order'd characters.

VIII.

50

55

Or should I thence hurried on viewless wing,
Take up a weeping on the mountains wild,
The gentle neighbourhood of grove and spring
Would foon unbosom all their echoes mild,
And I (for grief is easily beguild)

Might think th’infection of my sorrows loud
Had got a race of mourners on some pregnant cloud.
This subject the Author finding to be above the years

he had, when he wrote it, and nothing fatisfied with what was begun, left it unfinish'd.

V.

On TIME.
FLY envious Time, till thou run out thy race,

Call on the lazy leaden-stepping hours,
Whose speed is but the heavy plummet's pace;

And

IO

And glut thyself with what thy womb devours,
Which is no more than what is false and vain,

5
And merely mortal dross;
So little is our loss,
So little is thy gain.
For when as each thing bad thou hast intomb’d,
And last of all thy greedy self consum’d,
Then long Eternity shall greet our bliss
With an individual kiss;
And Joy shall overtake us as a flood,
When every thing that is sincerely good
And perfectly divine,
With truth, and peace, and love, shall ever shine
About the supreme throne
Of him, t’ whose happy-making sight alone
When once our heav’nly-guided soul shall clime,
Then all this earthy grosness quit,
Attir'd with stars, we shall for ever sit,

[Time. Triumphing over Death, and Chance, and thee, O

Upon this copy of verses, it appears from the Manu

happy-making fight, ] The plain script that the poet had written To be set on a English of beatific vision, . clock-case.

15. O more exceeding love or law more just ?

Juft

15

20

18.

VI.

YE

5

Upon the CIRCUMCISION.
E flaming Pow’rs, 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 listning 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'n's heraldry whilere
Enter'd the world, now bleeds to give us cafe;
Alas, how soon our sin
Sore doth begin

His infancy to seise!
O more exceeding love or law more just

15 Just law indeed, but more exceeding love!

For Just law indeed, but more excceeding love !] Improbus ille puer : crudelis tu quoque maVirgil Ecl. VIII. 49.

Richardson. Crudelis mater magis, an puer improbus ille?

IO