And the well balanc'd world on hinges hung, And cast the dark foundations deep,

And bid the weltring waves their oozy channel keep.

XIII.

Ring out ye cryftal spheres,

Once blefs our human ears,

(If ye have power to touch our fenfes so) And let filver chime

your

Move in melodious time;

And let the base of heav'n's deep organ blow; And with your ninefold harmony

Make up full confort to th'angelic fymphony.

For if fuch holy fong

Enwrap our fancy long,

XIV.

Time will run back, and fetch the age of gold, And fpeckl'd vanity

Will ficken foon and die,

And leprous fin will melt from earthly mould, And hell itfelf will pass away,

And leave her dolorous manfion to the peering day.

Yea truth and justice then

Will down return to men,

XV..

Orb'd in a rain-bow, and like glories wearing: Mercy will fit between,

Thron'd in celeftial fheen,

With radiant feet the tiffu'd clouds down fteering, And heav'n, as at fome festival,

Will open wide the gates of her high palace hall.

But wifeft fate fays no,

This must not yet be fo,

XVI.

The babe lyes yet in fimiling infancy, That on the bitter cross

Muft redeem our lofs;

So both himself and us to glorify:

Yet first, to those the chain'd in fleep,

The wakeful trump of doom must thunder thro' the deep.

With fuch a horrid clang
As on mount Sinai rang,

XVII.

While the red fire, and finouldring clouds out-brake: The aged earth agaft,

With terror of that blast,

Shall from the surface of the center shake;

When at the world's last feffion,

The dreadful Judge in middle air fhall spread his throne, XVIII.

And then at laft our bliss

Full and perfect is,

But now begins; for from this happy day Th' old dragon under ground

In straiter limits bound,

Not half so far caft his ufurped fway,

And wroth to see his kingdom fail,

Swinges the fcaly horrors of his folded tail.

The oracles are dumb,

XIX.

No voice or hideous humm

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 fpell,

Inspires the pale-ey'd priest from the prophetic cell
XX.

The lonely mountains o'er,

And the refounding fhore,

A voice of weeping heard, and loud lament; From haunted spring, and dale,

Edg'd with poplar pale,

The parting genius is with fighing fent;

With flow'r-inwov'n treffes torn

The nymphs in twilight fhade of tangled thickets mourn

In confecrated earth,

And on the holy hearth,

XXI.

The Lares and Lemures moan with midnight plaint;

In urns, and altars round,

A drear and dying found

Affrights the Flamens at their fervice quaint;

And the chill marble feems to fweat,

While each peculiar power forgoes his wonted feat.

T3

XXII. Peor

Peor and Baalim

Forfake their temples dim,

XXII.

With that twice batter'd god of Palestine z And mooned Afhtaroth,

Heav'n's queen and mother both,

Now fits not girt with tapers holy fhine; The Lybic Hammon fhrinks his horn;

In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz mourn. XXIII.

And fullen Moloch, fled,

Hath left in fhadows dred

His burning idol all of blackeft hue; In vain, with fymbols ring,

They call the grifly king,

In difinal dance about the furnace blue; The brutish gods of Nile as fast,

jis and Orus, and the dog Anubis, hafte.

Nor is Ofiris feen

XXIV.

In Memphian grove, or green,

Trampling the unfhower'd grafs with lowings loud: Nor can he be at reft

Within his facred cheft,

Naught but profoundest hell can be his fhroud;
In vain with timbrel'd anthems dark

The fable-ftoled forcerers bear his worship'd ark.
XXV.

He feels from Judah's land

The dreaded infant's hand,

The rays of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyn; Nor all the gods befide,

Longer dare abide,

Not Typhon huge ending in fnaky twine:

Our babe, to fhew his Godhead true,

Can in his fwadling bands controul the damned crew.

So when the fun in bed,

Curtain'd with cloudy red,

XXVI.

Pillows his chin upon an orient wave,

The flocking fhadows pale,

Troop to th' infernal jail,,

Each

Each fetter'd ghoft flips to his feveral grave, And the yellow-skirted fayes

Fly after the night-fteeds, leaving their moon-lov'd maze.. XXVII.

But fee the virgin bleft

Hath laid her babe to rest,

Time is our tedious fong should here have ending: Heav'n's youngest teemed star

Hath fixt her polish'd car,

Her fleeping lord with handmaid lamp attending: And all about the courtly stable,

Bright-harneft angels fit in order serviceable.

The PASSION. By Mr. Miltom..

I.

'RE while of mufic, and ethereal mirth,
Wherewith the stage of air and earth did ring,

And joyous news of heav'nly infant's birth,
My mufe with angels did divide to fing;
But headlong joy is ever on the wing,

In wintry folftice like the fhorten'd light,
Soon iwallow'd up in dark and long out-living night..

II.

For now to forrow muft Itune my fong,

And let my harp to notes of faddeft woe,

Which on our dearest. Lord did seize e're long,
Dangers, and fiares, and wrongs, and worfe than so,
Which he for us did freely undergo.

Moft perfect Hero, try'd in heaviest plight

Of labours huge and hard, too hard for human wight.

III.

He fov'reign priest stooping his regal head

That dropt with odorous oil down his fair eyes,
Poor fleshly tabernacle entered,

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

Yet

Yet more; the ftroke of death he must abide, Then lays him meekly down fast by his brethrens fide.

IV.

These latter scenes confine my roving verse,
To this horizon is my Phebus bound;
His godlike acts, and his temptations fierce,
And former fufferings, otherwhere are found;
Loud o'er the reft Cremona's trump doth found;
Me fofter airs befit, and softer strings

Of lute, or viol still more apt for mournful things.

V.

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

That heav'n and earth are colour'd with my woe;
My forrows are too dark for day to know:

The leaves fhould all be black whereon I write,
And letters where my tears have washt a wannish white.
VI.

See, see the chariot, and thofe rushing wheels,
That whirl'd the prophet up at Chebar flood,
My fpirit fome transporting cherub feels,
To bear me where the towers of Salem ftood,
Once glorious towers, now funk in guiltlefs blood;
There doth my foul in holy vifion fit

In penfive trance, and anguish, and ecftatic fit.

VII.

Mine eye hath found that fad fepulchral rock
That was the casket of heav'n's richest store,
And here tho' grief my feeble hands uplock,
Yet on the foftned quarry would I score
My plaining verse as lively as before;

For fure fo well instructed are my tears,
That they would fitly fall in order'd characters.
VIII.

Or fhould I thence, hurry'd on viewless wing,
Take up a weeping on the mountains wild,
The gentle neighbourhood of grove and spring
Would foon unbofom all their echoes mild,
And I (for grief is easily beguil'd)