No nightly trance, or breathed spell

179 Inspires the pale-ey*d priest from the prophetic cell.

XX.
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,

185 The parting Genius is with sighing sent : With flowr-inwoven tresses torn

(mourn. The Nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets

XXI.
In consecrated carth,
And on the holy hearth,

190
TheLars,and Lemures moan with midnight plaint;
In urns, and altars round,
A drear and dying found

Affrights the Flamens at their service quaint ; And the chill marble seems to sweat,

195 While each peculiar Pow'r forgoes his wonted seat.

XXII.
Peor and Baälim
Forsake their temples dim,

With that twice batter'd God of Palestine ;
And mooned Ashtaroth,
Heav'n's queen and mother both,

Now sits not girt with tapers holy shine ;
The Lybic Hammon shrinks his horn, (mourn.
In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz

XXIII. And sullen Moloch fled,

205 Hath left in Thadows dread

200

4

His burning idol all of blackest hue ;
In vain with cymbals ring
They call the grilly king,

In dismal dance about the furnace blue;
The brutish Gods of Nile as fast,
Ilis and Orus, and the dog Anubis halte.

XXIV.
Nor is Osiris seen
In Memphian grove or green,

Trampling the unfhowr'd grass with lowings loud : Nor çan he be at rest

216 Within his facred chest,

Nought but profoundeft Hell can be his Throud; In vain with timbrel'd anthems dark The fable-stoled sorcerers bear his worshipt ark. 2 20

XXV.
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,

225
Not Typhon huge ending in snaky twine :
Our babe to show his Godhead true,
Can in his fwadling bands controll the damned crew.

XXVI. So when the sun in bed, Curtain'd with cloudy red,

230 Pillows his chin upon an orient wave, The flocking shadows pale Troop to thinfernal jail,

Each fetter'd ghost slips to his several grave, And the yellow-skirted Fayes

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

[maze. Rut see the Virgin bleft Hath laid her Babe to rest,

O 3

Time

Tirne is our tedious song should here have ending: Heav'n's youngest teemed star

240 Hath fix'd her polith'd car,

Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending: And all about the courtly stable Bright-harnest Àngels fit in order serviceable.

IV.

The PASSION.

E

10

I.
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,

5 In wintry folitice like the shorten d light Soon swallow'd ypin dark and long out-living night.

II. For now to forrow must I tune my song, And fet my harp to notes of saddest woe, Which on our dearest Lord did seise ere long, Dangers, and fnares, and wrongs, and worse than so, Which he for us did freely undergo :

Most perfe&t Hero, try'd in heaviest plight Of labors huge and hard, too hard for human wight!

III. He fov'ran Priest stooping his regal head, "S That dropt with eqorous 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 !

Yet more ; the stroke of death he must abide, 20 Then lies him meekly down fast by his brethrens side.

These

2

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 found'; 25
Loud o'er the rest Cremona's trump doth found ;

Me softer airs befit, and softer strings
Of lute, or viol ftill, more apt for mournful things.

V.
Befriend me Night, best patroness of grief,
Oyer the pole thy thickest mantle throw, 30
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, 34
And letters where my tears have walh'd a wannish
VI.

[white.
See, see the chariot, and those rushing wheels,
That whirl'd the Prophet up at Chebar flood,
My spirit some transporting Cherub feels,
To bear me where the tow`rs of Salem stood,
Once glorious tow'rs, now funk in guiltless blood ; 40

There doth my foul in holy vision sit
In pensive trance, and anguish, and ecstatic fit.

VII.
Mine eye hath found that fad fepulchral rock
That was the casket of Heav'n's richest store,
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 to well instructed are my tears,
That they would fitly fall in order'd characters.

Or

VIII. Or should I thence hurried on viewless wing, $0 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 beguild)

Might think th' infection of my sorrows loud 55 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 unfinish'd.

V..

On TIME.

F

'L Y envious Time, till thou run out thy race,

Call on the lazy leaden-ftepping hours, Whose speed is but the heavy plummet’s pace ; And glut thyself with what thy womb. devours, Which is no more than what is false and vain, 5 And merely mortal dross ; So little is our loss, So little is thy gain. For when as each thing bad thou hast intomb’d, And last of all thy greedy self confum'd, Then long Eternity shall greet our bliss With an individual kiss ; And Joy Thall overtake us as a flood, When every thing that is fincerely good And perfectly divine,

15 With truth, and peace, and love, fali ever shine About the supreme throne

Of

TO