For, if such holy song Enwrap our fancy long, Time will run back and fetch the age of gold; 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. Yea, truth and justice then Will down return to men, Orb'd in a rainbow; and, like glories wearing, Mercy will sit between, Throned in celestial sheen, With radiant feet the tissued clouds down steering; And heaven, 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; The Babe yet lies in smiling infancy, That on the bitter cross Must redeem our loss; So both himself and us to glorify: The aged earth, aghast 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. And then at last our bliss Full and perfect is, But now begins; for, from this happy day, The old Dragon, under ground In straiter limits bound, Not half so far casts his usurped sway; And, wroth to see his kingdom fail, Swinges the scaly horror of his folded tail. The oracles are dumb, No voice or hideous hum Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving. 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-eyed priest from the prophetic cell. The lonely mountains o'er, And the resounding shore, A voice of weeping heard and loud lament; From haunted spring and dale, Edged with poplar pale, The parting genius is with sighing sent; With flower-inwoven tresses torn, The nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn. In consecrated earth, 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 foregoes his wonted seat. Peor and Baälim Forsake their temples dim, With that twice-batter'd god of Palestine; And mooned Ashtaroth, Heaven's queen and mother both, Now sits not girt with tapers' holy shine; The Lybic Hammon shrinks his horn, [mourn. In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz 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. Nor is Osiris seen In Memphian grove or green, Trampling the unshower'd grass with lowings loud: Nor can he be at rest Within his sacred chest; Nought but profoundest hell can be his shroud; In vain, with timbrell'd anthems dark, The sable-stoled sorcerers bear his worshipp'd ark. 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, Nor Typhon huge ending in snaky twine; Our Babe, to show his Godhead true, Can in his swaddling bands control the damned crew. So, when the sun in bed, Pillows his chin upon an orient wave, Troop to the infernal jail, Each fetter'd ghost slips to his several grave; And the yellow-skirted fays [maze. Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-loved But see, the Virgin blest Hath laid her Babe to rest; Time is, our tedious song should here have ending: Heaven's youngest-teemed star Hath 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. II. THE PASSION. EREWHILE of music, and ethereal mirth, In wintry solstice, like the shorten'd light, 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 perfect hero, tried in heaviest plight Of labours huge and hard, too hard for human wight! He, sovereign priest, stooping his regal head, His starry front low-roof'd beneath the skies: Yet more; the stroke of death he must abide, These latest scenes confine my roving verse; Of lute, or viol still, more apt for mournful things. Befriend me, night, best patroness of grief: That heaven and earth are colour'd with my woe; The leaves should all be black whereon I write, And letters, where my tears have wash'd, a wannish white. See, see the chariot, and those rushing wheels, In pensive trance, and anguish, and ecstatic fit. Mine eye hath found that sad sepulchral rock |