Bending one way their precious influence, And will not take their flight,

For all the morning light,

Or Lucifer that often warn'd them thence; But in their glimmering orbs did glow,

Until their Lord himself bespake, and bid them go.

And though the shady gloom

Had given day her room,

The sun himself withheld his wonted speed,

And hid his head for shame,

As his inferior flame

The new enlighten'd world no more should need; He saw a greater sun appear

Than his bright throne or burning axletree could bear.

The shepherds on the lawn,

Or ere the point of dawn,

Sat simply chatting in a rustic row;

Full little thought they ther,

That the mighty Pan

Was kindly come to live with them below;

Perhaps their loves, or else their sheep,

Was all that did their silly thoughts so busy keep.

When such music sweet

Their hearts and ears did greet,

As never was by mortal finger strook,

Divinely-warbled voice

Answering the stringéd noise,

As all their souls in blissful rapture took:

The air, such pleasure loth to lose,

With thousand echoes still prolongs each heavenly close

Nature that heard such sound,

Beneath the hollow round

Of Cynthia's seat, the airy region thrilling,

Now was almost won

To think her part was done,

And that her reign had here its last fulfilling;

She knew such harmony alone

Could hold all heaven and earth in happier union.

At last surrounds their sight

A globe of circular light,

That with long beams the shame-faced night array'd; The helméd cherubim,

And sworded seraphim,

Are seen in glittering ranks with wings display'd, Harping in loud and solemn quire,

With unexpressive notes to Heaven's new-born Heir.

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,

And bid the weltering waves their oozy channel keep.

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; 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 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 ychain'd in sleep,

The wakeful trump of doom must thunder thro' the deer

With such a horrid clang

As on Mount Sinai rang,

While the red fire and smoldering clouds outbrake: The agéd 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, underground

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 archéd roof in words deceiving. Apollo from his shrine

Can no more divine,

With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving. No nightly trance, or breathéd 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-in woven 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 forgoes his wonted seat.

Peor and Baälim

Forsake their temples dim,

With that twice batter'd god of Palestine; And moonéd Ashtaroth,

Heaven's queen and mother both,

Now sits not girt with tapers' holy shine;

The Lybic Hammon shrinks his horn,

In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz mourn.

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,

Naught but profoundest Hell can be his shroud; In vain with timbrell'd anthems dark

The sable-stoléd 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,

Not Typhon huge ending in snaky twine:

Our Babe to show his Godhead true,

Can in his swaddling bands control the damnéd crew

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,

And the yellow-skirted fays

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

But see the virgin blest

Hath laid her Babe to rest,

Time is our tedious song should here have ending: Heaven's youngest teeméd 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.

IV.

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 winter 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,

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 labors huge and hard, too hard for human wight!

He, sovereign Priest, stooping his regal head,
That dropt with odorous oil down his fair eyes,