The flocking shadows pale
Troop to the infernal 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 maze.

XXVII.

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,

240

Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending :

And all about the courtly stable

Bright-harness'd Angels sit in order serviceable*.

Ver. 232. The flocking shadows pale

Troop to the infernal jail,

Each fetter'd ghost slips to his several grave ;]

Mr. Bowle directs us to the Midsum. Night's Dr. A. iii. S. ult. "And yonder shines Aurora's harbinger;

"At whose approach, ghosts, wandering here and there, "Troop home to churchyards: damned spirits all,

"That in cross-ways and floods have burial,

Already in their wormy beds are gone." T. WARTon.

Ver. 235. And the yellow-skirted Fayes

Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moonlov'd maze.] It is a very poetical mode of expressing the departure of the fairies at the approach of morning, to say that they 'fly after the steeds of Night." T. WARTON.

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Ver. 242.

with handmaid lamp] Alluding, perhaps,

to the Parable of the ten Virgins in the Gospel. DUNSTER.

Ver. 244. Bright-harness'd Angels] Bright-arm'd. So, in Exod. xiii. 18. "The children of Israel went up harnessed out of the land of Egypt." NEWTON.

The arch-angel Michael is thus armed "in harnesse strong of never-yeelding diamonds," Fairfax, B. ix. st. 58. TODD.

* A great critick, in speaking of Milton's smaller poems, passes over this Ode in silence, and observes "All that short compositions can commonly attain is neatness and elegance." But Odes are short compositions, and they can often attain sublimity, which is even a characteristick of that species of poetry. We have the proof before us. He adds, "Milton never learned the art of doing little things with grace." If by little things we are to understand short poems, Milton had the art of giving them another sort of excellence. T. WARTON.

Thomas Forde, in his Fragmenta Poetica, published in 1660, has given us several poems on Christmas Day, in one or two of which he adopts some sentiments and expressions in this sublime and wonderful Ode; betraying, however, a want of genuine taste and fancy in affected emendation or ridiculous expansion. For example, in p. 7.

"What made the sun post hence away
"So fast, and make so short a day?
"Seeing a brighter sun appear,

"He ran and hid himself for fear:

"Asham'd to see himself out-shin'd,

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(Leaving us and night behind,)

"He sneak'd away to take a nap,

"And hide himself in Thetis lap!" TODD.

THE PASSION*.

I.

EREWHILE of musick, 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;

* The Passion is the subject of several Italian tragedies and poems. TODD.

Ver. 1. Erewhile of musick, and ethereal mirth,] Hence we may conjecture that 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. T. WARTON.

Ver. 4. My Muse with Angels did divide to sing ;] See Spenser, Faer. Qu. iii. i. 40.

"And all the while sweet Musicke did divide

"Her looser notes with Lydian harmony."

As Horace, "Imbelli cithara carmina divides." Od. i. xv. 15. Which Vossius, with his usual refinement, and to justify a new sense of his text, explains by alternate singing. In Catull. p. 239. edit., 1684. Compare Seneca, Hercules Oet. v. 1080. "Orpheus carmina dividens." Again, Milton says, that in the preceding Ode "his Muse with Angels did divide to sing." That is, perhaps, because she then "joined her voice to the angel quire,” as at v. 27. I know not if the technical term to run a division is here applicable. Shakspeare says, Rom. Jul. A. iii. S. 5.

"It is the lark that sings so out of tune,

Straining harsh discords, and unpleasing sharps ; "Some say the lark makes sweet division."

Compare Hen. IV. A. ii. S. 1.

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Sung by a fair queen in a summer's bower, "With ravishing division to her lute."

And Reed's Old Pl. viii. 373, 412. T. WARTON.

But headlong joy is ever on the wing,

In wintry solstice like the shorten'd light,

5

Soon swallow'd up in dark and long out-living night.

II.

For now to sorrow must I tune my song,

And set my harp to notes of saddest woe,

10

Which on our dearest Lord did seize ere long, Dangers, and snares, and wrongs, and worse than so, Which he for us did freely undergo:

Most perfect Hero, tried in heaviest plight

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

III.

He, sovran priest, stooping his regal head,
That dropt with odorous oil down his fair eyes,
Poor fleshy tabernacle entered,

His starry front low-rooft beneath the skies:

O, what a mask was there, what a disguise!

15

Ver. 5. But headlong joy is ever on the wing,] An elegant and expressive line. But Drayton more poetically calls joy, "the swallow-winged joy." T. WARTON.

"The

Ver. 13. Most perfect Hero,] From Heb. ii. 10. Captain of their salvation, perfect through sufferings." TODD.

Ver. 19. 0, what a mask was there, what a disguise !] Here seems to be a conceit, alluding to the old pastimes. See Stow's London, vol. i. p. 304, edit. Strype. "There were fine and subtle disguisings, masks, and mummeries," &c. And Ben Jonson, characterising Scogan the jester in his Fortunate Isles ; "that made disguises

"For the king's sons, and writ in ballad royall
Daintily well."

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But Spenser was most probably in Milton's mind. See Faer. Qu. iii. iii. 52.

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

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.

V.

Befriend me, Night, best patroness of grief;
Over the pole thy thickest mantle throw,

25

30

"Now this, now that, twixt them they did devize,
"And diverse plots did frame to mask in strange disguise,"
Todd.

Ver. 22. So edit. 1673. "These later," 1645. T. WARTON. Ver. 26. Loud o'er the rest Cremona's trump] Our poet seems here to be of opinion, that Vida's Christiad was the finest Latin poem on a religious subject; but perhaps it is excelled by Sannazarius De Partu Virginis, a poem of more vigour and fire than this work of Vida. Jos. WARTON.

Ver. 28. Of lute, or viol still,]

Gentle, not noisy, not loud, as is the trumpet. It is applied to sound in the same sense, I. Kings xix. 12. "A still small voice." And in First P.

Hen. V. A. iv. S. 1.

"The hum of either army stilly sounds."

And in Il Pens. v. 127.

"Or usher'd with a shower still."

This is in opposition to winds piping loud, in the verse before. Its application is not often to sound. Hence still-born, of a child born dead. T. WARTON.

. Ver. 30. Over the pole thy thickest mantle throw,] So, in Par. Lost, B. iv. 609.