The babe yet lies 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,

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,

through the deep;

With such a horrid clang

As on mount Sinai rang,

The aged Earth aghast

With terrour of that blast,

Shall from the surface to the centre shake;

When, at the world's last session,

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 ;

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

throne.

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,

And the yellow-skirted Fayes

Each fetter'd ghost slips to his several grave;

Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moonlov'd maze.

But see, the Virgin blest
Hath laid her babe to rest;

Time is, our tedious song should here have
ending :

Heaven's youngest-teemed star

Hath fix'd her polish'd car,

Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp atAnd all about the courtly stable

[tending:

Bright-harness'd angels sit in ord er serviceable.

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 wintery 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.[so,
Dangers, and snares, and wrongs, and worse than
Which he for us did freely undergo:

2 This Ode was probably composed soon after that on the Nativity. And this perhaps was a college exercise at Easter, as the last was at Christmas. WARTON.

These latest scenes confine my roving verse;
To this horizon is my Phoebus bound:

His god-like 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.

Befriend me, Night, best patroness of grief;
Over the pole thy thickest mantle throw,
And work my flatter'd fancy to belief,
That Heaven and Earth are colour'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 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 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.

Mine eye hath found that sad sepulchral rock
That was the casket of Heaven's richest store,

And here though grief my feeble hands up lock,
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.
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 the infection of my sorrows loud Had got a race of mourners on some pregnant cloud.

But kill'd, alas! and then bewail'd his fatal bliss.

For since grim Aquilo, his charioteer,
By boisterous rape the Athenian damsel got,
He thought it touch'd his deity full near,
If likewise he some fair one wedded not,
Thereby to wipe away the infamous blot

Of long-uncoupled bed and childless eld, Which, 'mongst the wanton gods, a foul reproach was held.

So, mounting up in icy-pearled car,
Through middle empire of the freezing air
He wander'd long, till thee he spied from far;
There ended was his quest, there ceas'd his care:
Down he descended from his snow-soft chair,

But, all unwares, with his cold kind embrace Unhous'd thy virgin soul from her fair hiding place.

Yet art thou not inglorious in thy fate;
For so Apollo, with unweeting hand,
Whilom did slay his dearly-loved mate,
Young Hyacinth, born on Eurotas' strand,
Young Hyacinth, the pride of Spartan land;

But then transform'd him to a purple flower: Alack, that so to change thee Winter had no power!

'Written in 1625, and first inserted in edition 1673. He was now seventeen. WARTON.

Yet can I not persuade me thou art dead,
Or that thy corse corrupts in Earth's dark womb,
Or that thy beauties lie in wormy bed,
Hid from the world in a low-delved tomb;
Could Heaven for pity thee so strictly doom?

Oh no! for something in thy face did shine
Above mortality, that show'd thou wast divine.

Resolve me then, oh soul most surely blest,
(If so it be that thou these plaints dost hear ;)
Tell me, bright spirit, where'er thou hoverest,
Whether above that high first-moving sphere,
Or in the Elysian Fields, (if such were there;)
Oh say me true, if thou wert mortal wight,
And why from us so quickly thou didst take thy
flight?

Wert thou some star which from the ruin'd roof
Of shak'd Olympus by mischance didst fall;
Which careful Jove in Nature's true behoof
Took up, and in fit place did reinstall?
Or did of late Earth's sons besiege the wall [fled,
Of sheeny Heaven, and thou, some goddess
Amongst us here below to hide thy nectar'd head?
Or wert thou that just maid, who once before
Forsook the hated Earth, O tell me sooth,
And cam'st again to visit us once more?
Or wert thou that sweet-smiling youth?
Or that crown'd matrons,age white-robed Truth?
Or any other of that heavenly brood

Let down in cloudy throne to do the world some good?

Or wert thou of the golden-winged host,
Who, baving clad thyself in human weed,
To Earth from thy prefixed seat didst post,
And after short abode fly back with speed,
As if to show what creatures Heaven doth breed;
Thereby to set the hearts of men on fire

To scorn the sordid world, and unto Heaven aspire?

But oh! why didst thou not stay here below
To bless us with thy heaven-lov'd innocence,
To slake his wrath whom sin hath made our foe,
To turn swift-rushing black Perdition hence,
Or drive away the slaughtering Pestilence,

To stand 'twixt us and our deserved smart? But thou canst best perform that office where thou art.

Then thou, the mother of so sweet a child,
Her false-imagin'd loss cease to lament,
And wisely learn to curb thy sorrows wild;
Think what a present thou to God hast sent,
And render him with patience what he lent;

This if thou do,' he will an offspring give, That, till the world's last end, shall make thy name to live.

For when as each thing bad thou hast entomb'd,
And last of all thy greedy self consum'd,
Then long Eternity shall greet our bliss
With an individual kiss;

And joy shall overtake us as a flood,
When every thing that is sincerely good
And perfectly divine,

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

Of him, to whose happy-making sight alone, When once our heavenly-guided soul shall climb, Then, all this earthy grossness quit,

Attir'd with stars, we shall for ever sit, Triumphing over Death, and Chance, and thee, O Time.

AT A

SOLEMN MUSIC.

BLEST pair of Sirens, pledges of Heaven's joy,
Sphere-born harmonious sisters, Voice and Verse,
Wed your divine sounds, and mix'd power employ
Dead things with inbreath'd sense able to pierce;
And to our high-rais'd phantasy present
That undisturbed song of pure consent,
Aye sung before the saphire-colour'd throne
To him that sits thereon,

With saintly shout, and solemn jubilee ;
Where the bright Seraphim, in burning row, 10
Their loud up-lifted angel-trumpets blow;
And the cherubic host, in thousand quires,
Touch their immortal harps of golden wires,
With those just spirits that wear victorious palms,
Hymns devout and holy psalms
Singing everlastingly :

That we on Earth, with undiscording voice,
May rightly answer that melodious noise;
As once we did, till disproportion'd Sin
Jarr'd against Nature's chime, and with harsh din
Broke the fair music that all creatures made
To their great Lord, whose love their motion
In perfect diapason, whilst they stood [sway'd
In first obedience, and their state of good."
O, may we soon again renew that song,
And keep in tune with Heaven, till God ere long
To his celestial consort us unite,

To live with him, and sing in endless morn of light!

AN

EPITAPH

ON THE

MARCHIONESS OF WINCHESTER'.
THIS rich marble doth inter

The honour'd wife of Winchester,
A viscount's daughter, an earl's heir,
Besides what her virtues fair

She was the wife of John marquis of Winchester, a conspicuous loyalist in the reign of king Charles the first, whose magnificent house or castle of Basing in Hampshire withstood an obstinate siege of two years against the rebels, and when taken was levelled to the ground, be. cause in every window was flourished. Aymer Loyaute.

Added to her noble birth,
More than she could own from earth.
Summers three times eight save one
She had told; alas! too soon,
After so short time of breath,

To house with darkness, and with death.
Yet had the number of her days
Been as complete as was her praise,
Nature and Fate had had no strife
In giving limit to her life.

Her high birth, and her graces sweet,
Quickly found a lover meet;
The virgin quire for her request
The god that sits at marriage feast ;
He at their invoking came,
But with a scarce well-lighted flame;
And in his garland, as he stood,
Ye might discern a cypress bud.
Once had the early matrons run,
To greet her of a lovely son,

And now with second hope she goes,
And calls Lucina to her throes;
But, whether by mischance or blame,
Atropos for Lucina came;
And with remorseless cruelty
Spoil'd at one both fruit and tree :
The hapless babe, before his birth,
Had burial, yet not laid in earth;
And the languish'd mother's womb
Was not long a living tomb.

So have I seen some tender slip,
Sav'd with care from Winter's nip,
The pride of her carnation train,
Pluck'd up by some unheedy swain,
Who only thought to crop the flower
New shot up from vernal shower;
But the fair blossom hangs the head
Side-ways, as on a dying bed,
And those pearls of dew, she wears,
Prove to be presaging tears,
Which the sad Morn had let fall
On her hastening funeral.

Gentle lady, may thy grave
Peace and quiet ever have ;
After this thy travel sore
Sweet rest seize thee evermore,
That, to give the world increase,
Shorten'd hast thy own life's lease.
Here, beside the sorrowing
That thy noble house doth bring,
Here be tears of perfect moan
Wept for thee in Helicon ;

And some flowers, and some bays,
For thy herse, to strew the ways,
Sent thee from the banks of Came,
Devoted to thy virtuous name;

Whilst thou, bright saint, high sitst in glory,
Next ber, much like to thee in story,
That fair Syrian shepherdess,

Who, after years of barrenness,
The highly favour'd Joseph bore
To him that serv'd for her before,

And at her next birth, much like thee,
Through pangs fled to felicity,
Far within the bosom bright
Of blazing Majesty and Light:
There with thee, new welcome saint,
Like fortunes may her soul acquaint,
With thee there clad in radiant sheen,
No marchioness, but now a queen.