Incessantly, and to his reading brings not A spirit and judgment equal or superior
(And what he brings, what needs he elsewhere seek?) Uncertain and unsettled still remains,
Deep vers'd in books and shallow in himself,
Crude or intoxicate, collecting toys,
And trifles for choice matters, worth a spunge;
As children gathering pebbles on the shore. Or if I would delight my private hours With music or with poem, where so soon As in our native language can I find
That solace? All our law and story strow'd
With hymns, our psalms with artful terms inscrib'd, Our Hebrew songs and harps in Babylon, That pleas'd so well our victor's ear, declare That rather Greece from us these arts deriv'd; Ill imitated, while they loudest sing
The vices of their deities, and their own In fable, hymn, or song, so personating Their gods ridiculous, and themselves past shame. Remove their swelling epithets thick laid As varnish on a harlot's cheek, the rest, Thin sown with ought of profit or delight, Will far be found unworthy to compare With Sion's songs, to all true tastes excelling, Where God is prais'd aright, and god-like men, The holiest of holies, and his saints;
Such are from God inspir'd, not such from thee, Unless where moral virtue is express'd
By light of Nature not in all quite lost. Their orators thou then extoll'st, as those The top of eloquence, statists indeed, And lovers of their country, as may seem; But herein to our Prophets far beneath, As men divinely taught, and better teaching The solid rules of civil government In their majestic unaffected stile Than all th' oratory of Greece and Rome, In them is plainest taught, and easiest learnt, What makes a nation happy', and keeps it so, What ruins kingdoms, and lays cities flat; These only with our law best form a king.
So, spake the son of God; but Satan now 365 Quite at a loss, for all his darts were spent, Thus to our Saviour with stern brow reply'd : Since neither wealth, nor honor, arms nor arts, Kingdom nor empire pleases thee, nor ought By me propos'd in life contemplative, Or active, tended on by glory', or fame, What dost thou in this world? the wilderness For thee is fittest place; I found thee there, And thither will return thee; yet remember What I foretel thee, soon thou shalt have cause To wish thou never hadst rejected thus
Nicely or cautiously my offer'd aid,
Which would have set thee in short time with ease On David's throne, or throne of all the world, Now at full age, fulness of time, thy season,
When prophecies of thee are best fulfill'd. Now contrary, if I read ought in Heav'n,
Or Heav'n write ought of Fate, by what the stars Voluminous, or single characters,
In their conjunction met, give me to spell,
Sorrows, and labors, opposition, hate Attends thee, scorns, reproaches, injuries, Violence and stripes, and lastly cruel death;
A kingdom they portend thee, but what kingdom, Real or allegoric I discern not,
Nor when, eternal sure, as without end, Without beginning; for no date prefix'd Directs me in the starry rubric set.
So say'ing he took (for still he knew his power Not yet expir'd) and to the wilderness
395 Brought back the Son of God, and left him there, Feigning to disappear. Darkness now rose, As day-light sunk, and brought in louring Night Her shadowy offspring, unsubstantial both, Privation mere of light and absent day. Our Saviour meek and with untroubled mind After his aery jaunt, though hurried sore, Hungry and cold betook him to his rest,
Wherever, under some concourse of shades, [shield Whose branching arms thick intertwin'd might From dews and damps of night his shelter'd head, But shelter'd slept in vain, for at his head The Tempter watch'd, and soon with ugly dreams Disturb'd his sleep; and either tropic now
'Gan thunder, and both ends of Heav'n, the clouds From many a horrid rift abortive pour'd Fierce rain with lightning mix'd, water with fire In ruin reconcil'd: nor slept the winds Within their stony caves, but rush'd abroad From the four hinges of the world, and fell On the vex'd wilderness, whose tallest pines, Though rooted deep as high, and sturdiest oaks Bow'd their stiff necks, loaden with stormy blasts Or torn up sheer: ill wast thou shrouded then, O patient Son of God, yet only stood'st Unshaken; nor yet stay'd the terror there, Infernal ghosts, and hellish furies, round [shriek'd, Environ'd thee, some howl'd, some yell'd, some Some bent at thee their fiery darts, while thou Satst unappall'd in calm and sinless peace. 425 Thus pass'd the night so foul, till morning fair Came forth with pilgrim steps in amice gray, Who with her radiant finger still'd the roar Of thunder, chas'd the clouds, and laid the winds, And grisly spectres, which the Fiend had rais'd 430 To tempt the Son of God with terrors dire. And now the sun with more effectual beams Had cheer'd the face of earth, and dry'd the wet From drooping plant, or dropping tree; the birds, Who all things now behold more fresh and green, After a night of storm so ruinous, 436 Clear'd up their choicest notes in bush and spray To gratulate the sweet return of morn;
Nor yet amidst this joy and brightest morn Was absent, after all his mischief done, The Prince of Darkness, glad would also seem Of this fair change, and to our Saviour came, Yet with no new device, they all were spent, Rather by this his last affront resolv'd, Desp❜rate of better course, to vent his rage, 445 And mad despite to be so oft repell'd. Him walking on a sunny hill he found, Back'd on the north and west by a thick wood; Out of the wood he starts in wonted shape, And in a careless mood thus to him said;
Fair morning yet betides thee, Son of God, After a dismal night; I heard the wrack As earth and sky would mingle; but myself Was distant; and these flaws, though mortals fear them
As dang'rous to the pillar'd frame of Heav'n, 455 Or to the Earth's dark basis underneath,
Are to the main as inconsiderable
And harmless, if not wholesome, as a sneeze To man's less universe, and soon are gone; Yet as being oft times noxious where they light 460 On man, beast, plant, wasteful and turbulent, Like turbulencies in th' affairs of men,
Over whose heads they roar, and seem to point, They oft fore-signify and threaten ill
This tempest at this desert most was bent; 465 Of men at thee, for only thou here dwell'st.
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