And mooned Afhtaroth,

Heav'n's queen and mother both,

Now fits not girt with tapers holy shine; The Lybic Hammon fhrinks his horn,

200

(mourn

In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz

XXIII.

And fullen Moloch fled,

Hath left in shadows dread

His burning idol all of blackest hue; In vain with cymbals ring

They call the grisly king,

205

In difmal dance about the furnace blue; The brutish Gods of Nile as fast,

210

Ifis and Orus, and the dog Anubis haste.

Nor is Ofiris feen

XXIV.

In Memphian grove or green,

Trampling theunfhowr'd grafs with lowings loud:

Nor can he be at rest

Within his facred cheft,

516

Nought but profoundest Hell can be his shroud;

In vain with timbrel'd anthems dark

The fable-ftoled forcerers bear his worshipt ark. XXV.

He feels from Juda's land

The dreaded Infant's hand,

The of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyn;

rays

521

Nor

Nor all the Gods befide,

Longer dare abide,

Not Typhon huge ending in fnaky twine: Our babe to fhow his Godhead true,

225

Can in his fwadling bands controll the damned crew.

XXVI.

So when the fun in bed,

Curtain'd with cloudy red,

Pillows his chin upon an orient wave,

The flocking shadows pale

Troop to th' infernal jail,

Each fetter'd ghoft flips to his several grave, And the yellow-skirted Fayes

230

Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-lov'd

235

(maze.

Time is our tedious fong fhould here have ending: Heav'n's youngest teemed star

Hath fix'd her polish'd car,

240

Her fleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending: And all about the courtly stable

Bright-harnest Angels fit in order serviceable.

The

E

IV.

The PASSION.

I.

REWHILE of music, and ethereal mirth,

Wherewith the stage of air and earth did ring, And joyous news of heav'nly Infant's birth, My Muse with Angels did divide to sing; But headlong joy is ever on the wing,

5

In wintry folftice like the shorten'd light Soon swallow'd up in dark and long out-living night.

II.

For now to forrow muft I tune my fong,

And fet my harp to notes of faddest woe,

10

Which on our dearest Lord did seise ere long, Dangers, and fnares, and wrongs, and worse than fo, Which he for us did freely undergo:

Most perfect Hero, try'd in heaviest plight

Of labors 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 fleshly tabernacle entered,

His starry front low-rooft beneath the skies;
O what a mask was there, what a disguise!

15

Yet more; the stroke of death he must abide, 20 Then lies him meekly down faft by his brethren's fide.

Thefe

IV.

These latest scenes confine my roving verse,
To this horizon is my Phœbus bound;
His Godlike acts, and his temptations fierce,
And former sufferings other where are found; 25
Loud o'er the reft Cremona's trump doth found;
Me fofter airs befit, and softer ftrings

Of lute, or viol ftill, more apt for mournful things.

V.

30

Befriend me Night, beft patronefs of grief,
Over the pole thy thickest mantle throw,
And work my flatter'd fancy to belief,
That Heav'n and Earth are color'd with my woe;
My forrows are too dark for day to know:

The leaves fhould all be black whereon I write, And letters where my tears have wash'da wannish VI.

(white. See, see the chariot, and those rushing wheels, 36 That whirl'd the Prophet up at Chebar flood, My spirit fome tranfporting Cherub feels, To bear me where the tow'rs of Salem ftood, Once glorious tow'rs, now funk in guiltless blood; There doth my foul in holy vision fit In pensive trance, and anguish, and exstatic fit.

VII.

41

Mine eye hath found that fad fepulchral rock
That was the casket of Heav'n's richest store,
And here though grief my feeble hands up lock, 45

Yet

Yet on the soften'd quarry would I score
My plaining verse as lively as before;

For fure fo well inftructed are my tears,

That they would fitly fall in order'd characters.
VIII.

Or should I thence hurried on viewless wing, 50
Take up a weeping on the mountains wild,
The gentle neighbourhood of grove and spring
Would foon unbofom all their echoes mild,
And I (for grief is eafily beguil'd)
Might think th' infection of my
Had got a race of mourners on fome pregnant cloud.
This fubject the Author finding to be above the years
he had, when he wrote it, and nothing fatisfied with
what was begun, left it unfinish'd.

forrows loud 55

LY envious Time, till thou run out thy race, Call on the lazy leaden-stepping hours, Whose speed is but the heavy plummet's pace; And glut thyfelf with what thy womb devours, Which is no more than what is false and vain, 5 And merely mortal drofs,

So little is our lofs,

So little is thy gain.

For when as each thing bad thou hast intomb'd, And last of all thy greedy felf confum'd,

A a

IO

Then