Afloat, when with fierce winds Orion1 arm'd
Hath vex'd the Red Sea coast, whose waves o'erthrew Busiris2 and his Memphian chivalry,
While with perfidious hatred they pursued The sojourners of Goshen, who beheld From the safe shore their floating carcasses And broken chariot-wheels: so thick bestrown, Abject and lost lay these, covering the flood, Under amazement of their hideous change. He call'd so loud, that all the hollow deep Of Hell resounded!-Princes, potentates, Warriours, the flower of heaven! once yours, now lost, If such astonishment as this can seize
Eternal Spirits! or have ye chosen this place After the toil of battle to repose
Your wearied virtue, for the ease you find To slumber here as in the vales of Heaven? Or in this abject posture have ye sworn To adore the Conquerour? who now beholds Cherub and Seraph rolling in the flood, With scatter'd arms and ensigns; till anon His swift pursuers from Heaven-gates discern The advantage, and, descending, tread us down Thus drooping, or with linked thunderbolts Transfix us to the bottom of this gulf? Awake, arise, or be for ever fallen!
They heard, and were abash'd, and up they sprung Upon the wing; as when men, wont to watch On duty, sleeping found by whom they dread, Rouse and bestir themselves ere well awake. Nor did they not perceive the evil plight In which they were, or the fierce pains not feel;
'Orion' the warrior constellation, symbolizing storms. Pharaoh.
Yet to their General's voice they soon obey'd, Innumerable. As when the potent rod Of Amram's son,1 in Egypt's evil day, Wav'd round the coast, upcall'd a pitchy cloud Of locusts, warping on the eastern wind, That o'er the realm of impious Pharaoh hung Like night, and darken'd all the land of Nile : So numberless were those bad Angels seen Hovering on wing under the cope of Hell, 'Twixt upper, nether, and surrounding fires; Till, as a signal given, the uplifted spear Of their great Sultan waving to direct Their course, in even balance down they light On the firm brimstone, and fill all the plain; A multitude, like which the populous North Pour'd never from her frozen loins, to pass Rhene or the Danaw, when her barbarous sons Came like a deluge on the South, and spread Beneath Gibraltar to the Lybian sands. Forthwith from every squadron and each band, The heads and leaders thither haste, where stood Their great Commander; Godlike shapes and forms Excelling human; princely Dignities
And Powers that erst in Heaven sat on thrones; Though of their names in heavenly records now Be no memorial; blotted out and ras'd By their rebellion from the books of life. Nor had they yet among the sons of Eve
Got them new names; till wandering o'er the earth, Through God's high sufferance, for the trial of man, By falsities and lies, the greatest part Of mankind they corrupted to forsake God their Creator, and the invisible
Glory of him that made them to transform Oft to the image of a brute, adorn'd
With gay religions, full of pomp and gold, And Devils to adore for Deities:
Then were they known to men by various names, And various idols through the Heathen world.
Say, Muse, their names then known; who first, who last, Rous'd from the slumber, on that fiery couch, At their great Emperour's call, as next in worth Came singly where he stood on the bare strand, While the promiscuous crowd stood yet aloof. The chief were those, who, from the pit of Hell Roaming to seek their prey on earth, durst fix Their seats long after next the seat of God, Their altars by his altar; gods adored Among the nations round; and durst abide Jehovah thundering out of Sion, thron'd Between the Cherubim; yea, often placed Within his sanctuary itself their shrines, Abominations; and with cursed things His holy rites and solemn feasts profan'd, And with their darkness durst affront his light.
First, Moloch,1 horrid king, besmear'd with blood Of human sacrifice, and parents' tears;
Though, for the noise of drums and timbrels loud, Their children's cries unheard, that pass'd through fire To his grim idol. Him the Ammonite
Worshipp'd in Rabba and her watery plain,
In Argob and in Basan, to the stream Of utmost Arnon; nor content with such Audacious neighbourhood, the wisest heart Of Solomon he led by fraud to build
''Moloch:' god of the Ammonites, by some supposed identical with the Mars of the Greeks.
His temple right against the temple of God On that opprobrious hill; and made his grove The pleasant valley of Hinnom, Tophet thence And black Gehenna call'd, the type of Hell. Next Chemos,1 the obscene dread of Moab's sons, From Aroer to Nebo, and the wild
Of southmost Abarim; in Hesebon And Horonaim, Seon's realm, beyond The flow'ry dale of Sibma clad with vines; And Eleälé2 to the Asphaltic pool :3
Peor his other name, when he entic'd Israel in Sittim, on their march from Nile, To do him wanton rites, which cost them woe. Yet thence his lustful orgies he enlarg'd Even to that hill of scandal, by the grove Of Moloch homicide; lust hard by hate; Till good Josiah drove them thence to Hell. With these came they, who, from the bordering flood Of old Euphrates to the brook that parts5 Egypt from Syrian ground, had general names Of Baälim and Ashtaroth; those male, These feminine: For Spirits, when they please, Can either sex assume, or both; so soft And uncompounded is their essence pure; Not tied or manacled with joint or limb,
Nor founded on the brittle strength of bones,
Like cumbrous flesh; but, in what shape they choose, Dilated or condens'd, bright or obscure,
Can execute their aery purposes,
And works of love or enmity fulfil.
For those the race of Israel oft forsook
1 Chemos:' idol of Moabites. 2 Aroer,' 'Nebo,' 'Hesebon,' 'Sibma,'
Eleälé,' &c.; all cities of Moab.-3 Asphaltic pool:' the Dead Sea, so
called from the asphaltus or bitumen in it.-Peor:' Baal Peor.-The brook that parts: the brook Besor.
Their Living Strength, and unfrequented left His righteous altar, bowing lowly down
To bestial gods; for which their heads as low Bow'd down in battle, sunk before the spear Of despicable foes. With these in troop Came Astoreth, whom the Phoenicians call'd Astarte,1 queen of Heaven, with crescent horns; To whose bright image nightly by the moon Sidonian virgins paid their vows and songs; In Sion also not unsung, where stood Her temple on the offensive mountain,2 built By that uxorious king, whose heart, though large, Beguiled by fair idolatresses, fell
To idols foul. Thammuz3 came next behind, Whose annual wound in Lebanon allured The Syrian damsels to lament his fate In amorous ditties, all a summer's day; While smooth Adonis4 from his native rock Ran purple to the sea, supposed with blood Of Thammuz yearly wounded: the love-tale Infected Sion's daughters with like heat; Whose wanton passions in the sacred porch Ezekiel saw, when, by the vision led, His eye survey'd the dark idolatries
Of alienated Judah. Next came one
Who mourn'd in earnest, when the captive ark Maim'd his brute image, head and hands lopt off In his own temple, on the grunsel edge,5 Where he fell flat, and sham'd his worshippers; Dagon his name, sea-monster, upward man
1 Astarte: the moon. 2 Offensive mountain:' Mount of Olives.3 Thammuz' or Adonis, god of the Syrians, fabled to die and revive each year.-1 Adonis:' the name of a river rising in Lebanon.—5 6 Grunsel edge:' edge of foot-post of his temple.
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