At last surrounds their sight

A globe of circular light,

That with long beams the shamefac'd night

The helmed cherubim,

And sworded seraphim,

[array'd;

[play'd,

[Heir.

Are seen in glittering ranks, with wings disHarping, in loud and solemn quire,

With unexpressive notes, to Heaven's new-born

Such music, as 'tis said,

Before was never made,

But when of old the sons of morning sung; While the Creator great

His constellations set,

And the well-balanced world on hinges hung; And cast the dark foundations deep, [keep. And bid the weltering waves their oozy channel

Ring out, ye crystal spheres,

Once bless our human ears,

If ye have power to touch our senses so; And let your silver chime

Move in melodious time,

And let the base of Heaven's deep organ blow;

And, with your ninefold harmony,

Make up full consort to the angelic symphony.

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; &, like glories wearing, Mercy, will sit between,

Throned in celestial sheen,

With radiant feet the tissued clouds down
And Heaven, as at some festival, [steering
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;
Yet first to those 'ychain'd in sleep

[the deep,

The wakeful trump of doom must thunder through

With such a horrid clang,

As on mount Sinai rang,

While the red fire and smouldring clouds out The aged Earth aghast,

With terror of that blast,

[brake:

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

Edg'd with poplar pale,

The parting genius is with sighing sent;

With flower-inwoven tresses torn,

[mourn.

The nymphs, in twilight shade of tangled thickets

In consecrated earth,

And on the holy hearth,

The Lars, and Lemures moan, with midnight

In urns, and altars round,

A drear and dying sound

[plaint;

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

While each peculiar power forgoes 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 Libyc 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

Nor can he be at rest

Within his sacred chest,

[loud;

Nought but profoundest He can be his shroud;

In vain with timbrell'd anthems dark,

The sable-stol'd sorcerers bear his worshipt 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,

Not Typhon huge, ending in snaky twine:

Our Babe, to show his godhead true,

[crew.

Can in his swaddling bands control the damned

So when the sun in bed,

Curtain'd with cloudy red,

Pillows his chin upon an orient wave,

The flocking shadows pale

Troop to the infernal jail,

Each fetter'd ghost slips to his several grave,

[maze.

Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-loved

And the yellow-skirted Fayes

But see, the virgin bless'd

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.

THE PASSION.

EREWHILE of music, and ethereal mirth,
Wherewith the stage of air and earth did ring,
And joyous news of heavenly infant's birth,
My muse with angels did divide to sing;
But headlong joy is ever on the wing,

In wintery solstice, like the shorten'd light,
Soon swallow'd up in dark, and long outliving night.
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,
That dropt with odorous oil down his fair eyes,
Poor fleshy tabernacle entered,

His starry front low-roof'd, 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 brethren's side.
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 still, more apt for mournful things.
Befriend me, Night, best patroness of grief,
Over the pole thy thickest mantle throw,
And work my flatter'd fancy to belief,

That Heaven and earth are colour'd with my woe;
My sorrows are too dark for day to know:

The leaves should all be black whereon I write, [whiteAnd letters, where my tears have wash'd, a wannish

See, see the chariot, and those rushing wheels,
That whirl'd the prophet up at Chebar flood,
My spirit some transporting cherub feels,
To bear me where the towers of Salem stood,
Once glorious towers, now sunk in guiltless blood;
There doth my soul in holy vision sit,

In pensive trance, and anguish, and ecstatic fit.
Mine eye hath found that sad sepulchral rock,
That was the casket of Heaven's richest store,
And here, though grief my feeble hands up lock,
Yet on the soften'd quarry would I score
My plaining verse, as lively as before;

For sure so well instructed are my tears,
That they would fitly fall in order'd characters.
Or should I thence hurried, on viewless wing,
Take up a weeping, on the mountains wild,
The gentle neighbourhood of grove and spring
Would soon unbosom all their echoes mild,
And I, for grief is easily beguiled,

Might think the 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 satisfied with what was begun, left it unfinished.

UPON THE CIRCUMCISION.

YE flaming powers, 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 listening 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 Heaven's heraldry, whilere
Enter'd the world, now bleeds to give us ease;

Alas, how soon our sin

Sore doth begin

His infancy to seize!

0, more exceeding love or law more just! Just law indeed, but more exceeding love!