IX. When such music sweet Their hearts and ears did greet, As never was by mortal finger strook, Divinely-warbled voice Answ'ring the stringed noise, As all their souls in blissful rapture took : The air as if such pleasure loth to lose, [close. With thousand echoes still prolongs each heav'nly X. Nature that heard such sound, Beneath the hollow round Of Cynthia's seat, the aery region thrilling, Now was almost won To think her part was done, And that her reign had here its last fulfilling; She knew such harmony alone Could hold all Heav'n and Earth in happier union. XI. At last surrounds their sight A globe of circular light, [ray'd, That with long beams the shame-fac'd Night ar The helmed Cherubim, And sworded Seraphim, Are seen in glittering ranks with wings display'd, Harping in loud and solemn quire, [Heir. With unexpressive notes to Heav'n's new-born XII. Such music (as 'tis said) Before was never made, With radiant feet the tissued clouds down steering; But when of old the sons of Morning sung, While the Creator great His constellations set, 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 crystal spheres, Once bless our human ears, If ye have power to touch our senses so; And let your silver chime Move in melodious time, And let the base of Heav'n's deep organ blow, And with your ninefold harmony, Make up full consort to th' angelic symphony. And leprous Sin will melt from earthly mold; And Hell itself will pass away, And leave her dolorous mansions to the peering day XV. Yea Truth and Justice then Will down return to men, Orb'd in a rainbow; and, like glories wearing, Mercy will sit between, Thron'd in celestial sheen, And Heav'n, as at some festival, Will open wide the gates of her high palace hall. But wisest Fate says no, XVI. -This must not yet be so, The Babe lies yet 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. But now begins; for, from this happy day, Th' old Dragon, under ground In straiter limits bound, Not half so far casts his usurped sway And, wroth to see his kingdom fail, XIX. 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-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, The parting Genius is with sighing sent; With flower-inwoven tresses torn The nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets In consecrated earth, XXI. And on the holy hearth, In urns, and altars round, [mourn. [plaint; The Lars and Lemures moan with midnight A drear and dying sound Affrights the Flamens at their service quaint; And the chill marble seems to sweat, While each peculiar power forgoes his wonted seat. Peor and Baälim XXII. 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, 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, Iris, and Orus, and the dog Anubis haste. Nought but profoundest hell can be his shroud; In vain with timbrel'd anthems dark The sable-stoled sorcerers bear his worshipt ark. 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, |