140

And let your silver chime
Move in melodious time;

And let the base of Heav'n's deep organ blow; 130
And, with your ninefold harmony,
Make up full concert to th' angelic symphony.

XIV. For, if such holy song nwrap our fancy long,

Time will run back, and fetch the age of gold; 135
And speckled vanity
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.

XV.
Yea, Truth and Justice then
Will down return to men,

Orb'd in a rainbow; and, like glories wearing,
Mercy will sit between,
Thron'd in celestial sheen

145
With radiant feet the tissu'd clouds down stecring;
And Heav'n, as at some festival,
Will open wide the gates of her high palace hall.

XVI.
But wisest Fate says no,
This must not yet be so,

150
The babe yet lies in smiling infancy,
That on the bitter cross
Must redeem our loss ;
So both himself and us to glorify :

155 Yet first, to those ychain'd in sleep, The wakeful trump of doom must thunder through the deep;

XVII.
With such a horrid clang
As on mount Sinai rang,
While the red fire and sinouldering clouds out brake :
The aged earth aghast,

160 With terror of that blast,

Shall from the surface to the centre shake;
When, at the world's last session,
The dreadful Judge in middle air shall spread his throne.

XVIII.
And then at last our bliss

105 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 ;

170 And, wroth to see his kingdom fail, Swindges the scaly horror of his folded tail.

XIX.
The oracles are dumnb,
No voice or hideous bum

Runs through the arcbed roof in words deceiving. 175
Apollo from his shrine
Can no more divine,

With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving
No nightly trance, or breathed spell,
Inspires the pale-ey'd priest from the prophetic cell. 180

XX.
The lonely enountains o'er,
And the resounding shore,

A voice of weeping heard and loud lament;

From haunted spring and dale,
Edg'd with poplar pale,

185
The parting Genius is with sighing sent;
With flower-inwoven tresses torn
The Nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn.

XXI.
In consecrated earth,
And on the holy hearth,

190
The Lars, and Lemures, moan with midnight plaint;
In urns, and altars round,
A drear and dying sound

Affrights the Flamens at their service quaint; And the chill marble seems to sweat,

195 While each peculiar Pow'r forgoes his wonted seat.

XXII.
Peor and Baälim
Forsake their temples dim,
With that twice-batter'd God of Palestine;

199 And mooned Ashtaroth, Heav’o's queen and mother hoth,

Now its not girt with tapers' holy shine; The Libye Hammon shrinks his horn, In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz mourn.

XXIII. And sullen Moloch fled,

205 Hath left in shadows dread

His burning idol all of blackest hue ;
In vain with cymbals' ring
They call the grisly king,

199.66 That twice-battered God of Palestine ;”.... Dagong first hattered by Samson then by the ark of God. VOL. II.

47

In disrnal dance about the furnace blue :

210 The brutish Gods of Nile as fast, Isis, and Orus, and the dog Anubis hasto.

XXIV..
Nor is Osiris seen
In Memphian grove or green,

Trampling the unshow'r'd grass with lowings loud: 215
Nor can he be at rest
Within his sacred chest;

Nought but profoundest Hell can be his shroud;
In vain with timbrel'd anthems dark
The sable-stoled sorcerers bear his worshipp'd ark. 220

XXV.
The 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,

27
Not Tpyhon huge ending in snaky twine :
Our babe, to show his Godhead true,
Can in his swaddling bands control the dafined crew.

XXVI.
So, when the sun in bed,
Curtain'd with cloudy red,

Pillows his chiu upon au orient wave,
The flocking shadows pale
Troop to th' infernal jail,

Each fetter'd ghost slips to his several grave;
And the yellow-skirted fayes.
Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-lov'd maza.

XXVII.
But see, the Virgin blest
Hath laid her Rabe to rest;

Time is our tedious song should here have ending ;
Heav'n's youngest-teemed star
llath fix'd her polish'd car,

Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending :
And all about the courtly stable
Bright-harness'd Angels sit in order serviceable.

240

IV.

THE PASSION.

I.
LREWHILE 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 shorten'd light,
Soon swallow'd up ia dark and long out-living night.

11.
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,
Dangers, and snares, and wrongs, and worse than so,
Which he for us did freely undergo :

Most perfet Hero, try'd io heaviest plight
Of labours huge and hard, too hard for human wight!

10