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Not Typhon huge ending in snaky twine: Our Babe, to show his Godhead true,

Can in his swadling bands control the damned crew.

XXVI.

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 Fayes

Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-lov'd

XXVII.

But see the Virgin blest

Hath laid her Babe to rest;

(maze.

Time is, our tedious song should here have ending: Heav'n'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.

IV. The Passion.

1.

EREWHILE
REWHILE of music, and ethereal mirth,
Wherewith the stage of air and earth did ring,
And joyous news of heav'nly Infant's birth,
My Muse with angels did divide to sing;
But headlong Joy is ever on the wing,

In wintry solstice like the shorten'd light, Soon swallow'd up in dark and long out-living night.

11.

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, try'd in heaviest plight
Of labors huge and hard, too hard for human wight!

III.

He, sovran Priest, stooping his regal head,
That dropt with odorous oil down his fair eyes,
Poor fleshly tabernacle entered,

His starry front low-rooft beneath the skies;
O what a mask was there, what a disguise!

IV.

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 Phœbus 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.

V.

Befriend me, Night, best patroness of grief,
Over the pole thy thickest mantle throw,
And work my flatter'd fancy to belief,

That Heav'n and Earth are color'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

VI.

[white. See, see the chariot, and those rushing wheels, That whiri'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.

VII.

Mine eye hath found that sad sephulchral rock
That was the casket of Heav'n's richest store,
And here though grief my feeble hands uplock,
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.

VIII.

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 beguil'd)

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 unfinishe

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In wintry solstice like the shorten'd lig Soon swallow'd up in dark and long out-livi

11.

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 lo Dangers, and snares, and wrongs, and worse Which he for us did freely undergo:

Most perfect Hero, try'd in heaviest pl Of labors huge and hard, too hard for huma

III.

He, sovran Priest, stooping his regal head, That dropt with odorous oil down his fair Poor fleshly tabernacle entered,

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 al Then lies him meekly down fast by his br

IV.

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 foun
Loud o'er the rest Cremona's trump doth so

Me softer airs befit, and softer strings
Of lute, or viol still, more apt for mournful

V.

Befriend me, Night, best patroness of grief Over the pole thy thickest mantle throw, And work my flatter'd fancy to belief,

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