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,

Sate simply chatting in a rustic row;

Full little thought they then,

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 by a mortal finger strook;

Divinely warbl'd voice

Answering the stringed noise,

As all their souls in blissful rapture took:

The air, such pleasure loath to lose,

With thousand echos 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 shamefac'd night array'd;

The helmed 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,

As the well-ballanc'd 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 angel-like 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,

Thron'd in celestial sheen,

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,

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 through

the deep;

With such a horrid clang

As on mount Sinai rang

While the red fire, and smouldring clouds out

brake:

The aged 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, 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 flow'r-inwov'n tresses torn

The nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets

mourn.

In consecrated earth,

And or 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 foregoes 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,

In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thamuz

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,

Y