XV

Yes, Truth and Justice then
Will down' return to men,

The enamelled arras of the rainbow wearing;
And Mercy set 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.

XVI

But wisest Fate says No,

This must not yet be so;

The Babe lies yet in smiling infancy

That on the bitter cross

Must redeem our loss,

So both himself and us to glorify: Yet first, to those ychained 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 smouldering clouds outbrake:
The aged Earth, aghast

With terror of that blast,

Shall from the surface to the centre shake,

When, at the world's last sessiön,

The dreadful Judge in middle air shall spread his throne.

XVIII

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.

XIX

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 breathèd spell,

Inspires the pale-eyed Priest from the prophetic cell.

XX

The lonely mountains o'er,
And the resounding shore,

A voice of weeping heard and loud lament;
From haunted spring, and dale

Edgèd with poplar pale,

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,

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.

Peor and Baälim

XXII

Forsake their temples dim,

With that twice-battered god of Palestine;

And moonèd Ashtaroth,

Heaven's Queen and Mother both,

Now sits not girt with tapers' holy shine: The Libyc Hammon shrinks his horn;

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;

Nor can he be at rest

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.

XXV

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,

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,

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.

A PARAPHRASE ON PSALM CXIV

(1624)

WHEN the blest seed of Terah's faithful Son
After long toil their liberty had won,

And passed from Pharian fields to Canaanland,
Led by the strength of the Almighty's hand,
Jehovah's wonders were in Israel shown,
His praise and glory was in Israel known.
That saw the troubled sea, and shivering fled,
And sought to hide his froth-becurlèd head
Low in the earth; Jordan's clear streams recoil,
As a faint host that hath received the foil.
The high huge-bellied mountains skip like rams
Amongst their ewes, the little hills like lambs.
Why fled the ocean? and why skipped the mountains?
Why turned Jordan toward his crystal fountains?
Shake, Earth, and at the presence be aghast
Of Him that ever was and aye shall last,
That glassy floods from rugged rocks can crush,
And make soft rills from fiery flint-stones gush.

PSALM CXXXVI

LET us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for he is kind;
For his mercies aye endure,

Ever faithful, ever sure.

Let us blaze his Name abroad,
For of gods he is the God;
For his, &c.

O let us his praises tell,

That doth the wrathful tyrants quell; For his, &c.

That with his miracles doth make
'Amazèd Heaven and Earth to shake;
For his, &c.

That by his wisdom did create
The painted heavens so full of state;
For his, &c.

That did the solid Earth ordain
To rise above the watery plain;
For his, &c.

That by his all-commanding might,
Did fill the new-made world with light;
For his, &c.

And caused the golden-tressèd Sun
All the day long his course to run;
For his, &c.

The horned Moon to shine by night
Amongst her spangled sisters bright;
For his, &c.

He, with his thunder-clasping hand,
Smote the first-born of Egypt land;
For his, &c.