Mercy will sit between, Yea, Truth and Justice then Will down return to men, Orb'd in a rainbow; and, like glories wearing, Throned in celestial sheen, 145 With radiant feet the tissued clouds down steering, And Heav'n 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, 150 The babe lies yet in smiling infancy That on the bitter cross Must redeem our loss; As on mount Sinai rang, [brake: While the red fire and smouldering clouds outThe aged Earth aghast, 160 With terror of that blast, Shall from the surface to the centre shake; When at the world's last session, [throne. 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, 176 With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving. No nightly trance or breathed spell Inspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell. 173. In allusion to the opinion that the oracles ceased 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 181 185 [mourn. The nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets 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 Now sits not girt with tapers' holy shine; 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 unshow'r'd grass with lowings loud: 191. The Lars and Lemures; household gods and night spirits. Flamens; priests. There is a remarkable resemblance in this poem, one of Milton's earliest, to the later productions of his genius. It presents the same mixture of learning and fancy; of original genius, forgetting itself amid the treasures of erudition. Most of the mythological names have been mentioned in the notes to the larger poems. Nor can he be at rest Within his sacred chest, 216 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 221 The dreaded Infant's hand, The rays of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyn; Nor all the gods beside, Longer dare abide, 225 Nor Typhon huge ending in snaky twine: Our Babe to shew his Godhead true, Can in his swaddling bands control the damned crew. Each fetter'd ghost slips to his several grave, And the yellow-skirted Fayes 235 Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-loved maze. But see the Virgin blest Hath laid her Babe to rest, Time is our tedious song should here have ending: Heav'n's youngest teemed star Hath fix'd her polish'd car, 240 Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending : And all about the courtly stable Bright-harnest angels sit in order serviceable. IV. THE PASSION. EREWHILE of music, and ethereal mirth, Wherewith the stage of air and earth did ring, 5 244. Bright-harnest; arnese, from which the epithet is derived, is an Italian word for any kind of ornament or dress. Harness, in English, is commonly used for armour. See 1 Kings xx. 11. In wintry solstice like the shorten'd light Soon swallow'd up in dark and long out-living night. For now to sorrow must I tune my song, 10 And set my harp to notes of saddest woe, Most perfect Hero, tried in heaviest plight, [wight! Of labours huge and hard, too hard for human He sov'reign Priest stooping his regal head, That dropt with odorous oil down his fair eyes, Poor fleshly tabernacle entered, 15 His starry front low-rooft 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, 20 To this horizon is my Phoebus bound; His godlike acts, and his temptations fierce, Of lute, or viol still, more apt for mournful things. 25 30 That Heav'n 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, And letters where my tears have wash'd a wannish white. See, see the chariot, and those rushing wheels, My spirit some transporting cherub feels, To bear me where the tow'rs of Salem stood, 35 41 26. Cremona was the birth-place of the poet Vida, who wrote poem on the sufferings and history of Christ. 37. The prophet; Ezekiel. See Fzekiel, chap. i. Mine eye hath found that sad sepulchral rock And here though grief my feeble hands up lock, 45 Yet on the soften'd quarry would I score My plaining verse as lively as before; For sure so well instructed are my tears, Or should I thence, hurried on viewless wing, 50 55 Might think th' 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.] V. ON TIME. FLY, envious Time, till thou run out thy race, So little is our loss, 5 So little is thy gain. For when as each thing bad thou hast entomb'd, 10 Then long Eternity shall greet our bliss With an individual kiss; And Joy shall overtake us as a flood, When every thing that is sincerely good And perfectly divine, 15 With truth, and peace, and love, shall ever shine About the supreme throne Of Him, to' whose happy-making sight alone |