XVIII.

ON HIS

DECEASED WIFE.

METHOUGHT I saw my late espoused saint Brought to me, like Alcestis, from the grave, Whom Jove's great son to her glad husband gave, Rescu'd from death by force, though pale and faint. Mine, as whom wash'd from spot of child-bed

taint

Purification in the old law did save,

And such, as yet once more I trust to have
Full sight of her in Heaven without restraint,
Came vested all in white, pure as her mind:

Her face was veil'd; yet to my fancied sight
Love, sweetness, goodness, in her

person shin'd So clear, as in no face with more delight

But O, as to embrace me she inclin'd,

I wak'd; she fled; and day brought back my night.

ODES.

T 2

ODES.

ON

THE MORNING

OF

CHRIST'S NATIVITY.

THIS is the month, and this the happy morn,
Wherein the Son of Heaven's Eternal King,
Of wedded Maid and Virgin Mary born,
Our great redemption from above did bring;
For so the holy sages once did sing,

That he our deadly forfeit should release, And with his Father work us a perpetual peace.

II.

That glorious form, that light unsufferable,
And that far-beaming blaze of majesty,
Wherewith he wont at Heaven's high council-table
To sit the midst of Trinal Unity,

He laid aside; and, here with us to be,

Forsook the courts of everlasting day,

And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay.

III.

Say, heavenly Muse, shall not thy sacred vein
Afford a present to the Infant-God?

Hast thou no verse, no hymn, or solemn strain,
To welcome him to this his new abode,

Now while the heaven, by the sun's team untrod,
Hath took no print of the approaching light,
And all the spangled host keep watch in squadrons
bright?

IV.

See, how from far, upon the eastern road,
The star-led wisards haste with odours sweet:
O run, prevent them with thy humble ode,
And lay it lowly at his blessed feet;
Have thou the honour first thy Lord to greet,
And join thy voice unto the Angel-quire,

From out his secret altar touch'd with hallow'd fire.