In consecrated earth, XXI. And on the holy hearth, 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, While each peculiar power forgoes his wonted seat. XXII. 190 Peor and Baälim Forsake their temples dim, With that twice-battered god of Palestine ; Heaven's queen and mother both, Now sits not girt with tapers' holy shine : The Libyc Hammon shrinks his horn; 200 In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz mourn. XXIII And sullen Moloch, fled, Hath left in shadows dread 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, Isis, and Orus, and the dog Anubis, haste XXIV. Nor is Osiris seen In Memphian grove or green, Trampling the unshowered grass with lowings loud; Within his sacred chest ; Nought but profoundest Hell can be his shroud; In vain, with timbreled anthems dark, The sable-stolèd sorcerers bear his worshiped ark. 210 220 XXV. He feels from Juda's land The dreaded Infant's hand; The rays of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyn; Longer dare abide, Not Typhon huge ending in snaky twine : Our Babe, to show his Godhead true, Can in his swaddling bands control the damnèd crew. XXVI. So, when the sun in bed, Curtained with cloudy red, Pillows his chin upon an orient wave, The flocking shadows pale Troop to the infernal jail, Each fettered ghost slips to his several grave, And the yellow-skirted fays Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-loved maze. XXVII. But see the Virgin blest Hath laid her Babe to rest. Time is our tedious song should here have ending: Heaven's youngest-teemèd star Hath fixed her polished car, Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending; And all about the courtly stable Bright-harnessed Angels sit in order serviceable. UPON THE CIRCUMCISION. YE flaming Powers, and wingèd Warriors bright, 230 240 Burn in your sighs, and borrow Seas wept from our deep sorrow. He who with all Heaven's heraldry whilere Sore doth begin His infancy to seize! O more exceeding love, or law more just? And that great covenant which we still transgress And the full wrath beside Of vengeful justice bore for our excess, And seals obedience first with wounding smart This day; but oh! ere long, Huge pangs and strong Will pierce more near his heart. ΙΟ 20 THE PASSION. 1. EREWHILE of music, and ethereal mirth, But headlong joy is ever on the wing, In wintry solstice like the shortened light Soon swallowed up in dark and long outliving night. II. 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, Most perfect Hero, tried in heaviest plight Of labours huge and hard, too hard for hunan wight! ΙΟ III. He, sovran Priest, stooping his regal head, His starry front low-roofed beneath the skies : Yet more the stroke of death he must abide ; IV. These latest scenes confine my roving verse; His godlike acts, and his temptations fierce, Of lute, or viol still, more apt for mournful things. V. Befriend me, Night, best patroness of grief! 20 30 And work my flattered fancy to belief That heaven and earth are coloured with my woe; My sorrows are too dark for day to know : The leaves should all be black whereon I write, And letters, where my tears have washed, a wannish white. VI. See, see the chariot, and those rushing wheels, In pensive trance, and anguish, and ecstatic fit. VII. Mine eye hath found that sad sepulchral rock 40 And here, though grief my feeble hands up-lock, My plaining verse as lively as before; For sure so well instructed are my tears That they would fitly fall in ordered characters. VIII. Or, should I thence, hurried on viewless wing, Might think the infection of my sorrows loud 50 This Subject the Author finding to be above the years he had when he wrote it, and nothing satisfied with what was begun, left it unfinished. ON TIME. FLY, envious Time, till thou run out thy race : So little is our loss, So little is thy gain! For, whenas each thing bad thou hast entombed, And, last of all, thy greedy self consumed, 10 And perfectly divine, With Truth, and Peace, and Love, shall ever shine About the supreme throne Of Him, to whose happy-making sight alone Then, all this earthy grossness quit, When once our heavenly-guided soul shall climb, 20 Attired with stars we shall for ever sit, Triumphing over Death, and Chance, and thee, O Time! |