Peor and Baälim

Forsake their temples dim,

With that twice-batter'd god of Palestine ; And mooned Ashtaroth,

Heaven's queen and mother both,

Now sits not girt with tapers' holy shine; The Lybic Hammon shrinks his horn,

In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz mourn.

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,

Isis, and Orus, and the dog Anubis, haste.

Nor is Osiris seen

In Memphian grove or green,

Trampling the unshower'd

Nor can he be at rest

Within his sacred chest ;

grass with lowings loud:

Nought but profoundest hell can be his shroud; In vain, with timbrell'd anthems dark,

The sable-stoled sorcerers bear his worshipp'd ark.

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,

Nor Typhon huge ending in snaky twine;

Our Babe, to show his Godhead true,

Can in his swaddling bands control the damned crew.

So, when the sun in bed,
Curtain'd with cloudy red,

Pillows his chin upon an orient wave,
The flocking shadows pale

Troop to the infernal jail,

Each fetter'd ghost slips to his several grave; And the yellow-skirted fays

Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-loved maze.

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,

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

Bright harness'd angels sit in order serviceable.

II.

THE PASSION.

EREWHILE of music, 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;
But headlong joy is ever on the wing,

In wintry solstice, like the shorten'd light,
Soon swallow'd up in dark and long outliving night.

For now to sorrow must I tune my song,

And set my harp to notes of saddest woe,

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!

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

His starry front low-roof'd beneath the skies:
Oh, what a mask was there—what a disguise!

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

These latest scenes confine my roving verse;
To this horizon is my Phoebus bound :

His godlike 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.

Befriend me, night, best patroness of grief:
Over the pole thy thickest mantle throw,
And work my flatter'd fancy to belief,

That heaven and earth are colour'd with my woe;
My sorrows are too dark for day to know;

The leaves should all be black whereon I write,
And letters, where my tears have wash'd, a wannish white.

See, see the chariot, and those rushing wheels,
That whirl'd the prophet up at Chebar flood;
My spirit some transporting cherub feels,

To bear me where the towers of Salem stood,
Once glorious towers, now sunk in guiltless blood;
There doth my soul in holy vision sit,

In pensive trance, and anguish, and ecstatic fit.

Mine eye hath found that sad sepulchral rock
That was the casket of Heaven's richest store,
And here, though grief my feeble hands up-lock,

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

For sure so well instructed are my tears,
That they would fitly fall in order'd characters.

Or should I thence, hurried on viewless wing,
Take up a weeping on the mountains wild,
The gentle neighbourhood of grove and spring
Would soon unbosom all their echoes mild;
And I (for grief is easily beguiled)

Might think the infection of my sorrows loud
Had got a race of mourners on some pregnant cloud.

This subject the author finding to be above the years he had when he wrote it, and nothing satisfied with what was begun, left it unfinished.

III.

UPON THE CIRCUMCISION.

YE flaming powers, and winged warriors bright,
That erst with music, and triumphant song,
First heard by happy watchful shepherds' ear,
So sweetly sung your joy the clouds along
Through the soft silence of the listening night;
Now mourn; and, if sad share with us to bear
Your fiery essence can distil no tear,

Burn in your sighs, and borrow

Seas wept from our deep sorrow :

He, who with all heaven's heraldry whilere
Enter'd the world, now bleeds to give us ease.
Alas! how soon our sin

Sore doth begin

His infancy to seize !

O more exceeding love, or law more just?
Just law, indeed, but more exceeding love!

For we, by rightful doom remediless,
Were lost in death, till he, that dwelt above,
High-throned in secret bliss, for us frail dust
Emptied his glory, even to nakedness;

And that great covenant, which we still transgress,
Entirely satisfied,

And the full wrath beside

Of vengeful justice bore for our excess;

And seals obedience first, with wounding smart,
This day; but, oh, ere long,

Huge pangs and strong

Will pierce more near his heart.

IV.

ON THE DEATH OF A FAIR INFANT, DYING OF A COUGH.

O FAIREST flower, no sooner blown but blasted,
Soft silken primrose fading timelessly,

Summer's chief honour, if thou hadst out-lasted
Bleak Winter's force that made thy blossom dry;
For he, being amorous on that lovely dye

That did thy cheek envermeil, thought to kiss,
But kill'd, alas! and then bewail'd his fatal bliss.

For since grim Aquilo, his charioteer,
By boisterous rape the Athenian damsel got,
He thought it touch'd his deity full near,
If likewise he some fair one wedded not,
Thereby to wipe away the infamous blot

Of long uncoupled bed and childless eld,
Which, 'mongst the wanton gods, a foul reproach was held.

So, mounting up in icy-pearled car,

Through middle empire of the freezing air

He wander'd long, till thee he spied from far;

There ended was his quest, there ceased his care: