But wisest Fate says no, This must not yet be so, 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, [the deep; The wakeful trump of doom must thunder through With such a horrid clang As on mount Sinai rang, [brake: While the red fire and smouldering clouds out The aged earth aghast, With terror of that blast, Shall from the surface to the centre shake; When, at the world's last session. [throne. The dreadful Judge in middle air shall spread his 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, Swinges 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-eyed priest from the prophetic cell. VOL. III. M The lonely mountains o'er, And the resounding shore, A voice of weeping heard and loud lament ; From haunted spring and dale, Edged with poplar pale, The parting Genius is with sighing sent : With flower-inwoven tresses torn [mourn. The Nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets In consecrated earth, And on the holy hearth, [plaint : The Lars, and Lemures, moan with midnight In urns, and altars round, A drear and dying sound Affrights the Flamens at their service quaint; And the chill marble seems to sweat, [seat. While each peculiar Power foregoes his wonted 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; [mourn. In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz 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, [loud: Trampling the unshower'd grass with lowings 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 The sable-stoled sorcerers bear his worshipp'd ark. 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, Not Typhon huge ending in snaky twine: Our Babe, to show his Godhead true, [crew. Can in the swaddling bands controll the damned 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, Each fetter'd ghost slips to his several grave; And the yellow-skirted Fayes [maze. Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-loved But see, the Virgin bless'd 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, [ing: Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attend And all about the courtly stable Bright-harness'd angels sit in order serviceable. THE PASSION. EREWHILE of music, and etherial mirth, [so, Most perfect hero, tried in heaviest plight He, sovran priest, stooping his regal head, His starry front low-roof'd beneath the skies: Yet more; the stroke of death he must abide, Then lays him meekly down fast by his brethren's side. These latest scenes confine my roving verse: Of lute, or viol still, more apt for mournful things. Befriend me, Night! best patroness of grief; my woe; 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, 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 would I score quarry 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 Might think the' infection of my sorrows loud 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 unfinished. |