IX.

When such musick sweet

Their hearts and ears did greet;

As never was by mortal finger strook; Divinely-warbled voice

Answering the stringed noise,

As all their souls in blissful rapture took :

The air, such pleasure loth to lose,

With thousand echoes still prolongs each heavenly

close.

X.

Nature that heard such sound,

Beneath the hollow round

Of Cynthia's seat, the aery region thrilling, Now was almost won

To think her part was done,

And that her reign had here its last fulfilling;

She knew such harmony alone

Could hold all Heaven and earth in happier union.

XI.

At last surrounds their sight

A globe of circular light,

That with long beams the shamefac'd night array'd;

The helmed Cherubim,

And sworded Seraphim,

Are seen in glittering ranks with wings display'd,

Harping in loud and solemn quire,

With unexpressive notes, to Heaven's new-born

Heir.

XII.

Such musick (as 'tis said)

Before was never made,

But when of old the sons of morning sung,

While the Creator great

His constellations set,

And the well-balanc'd world on hinges hung;

And cast the dark foundations deep,

And bid the weltering waves their oozy channel keep.

XIII.

Ring out, ye crystal spheres,

Once bless our human ears,

If ye
And let your silver chime

Move in melodious time;

have power to touch our senses so;

And let the base of Heaven's deep organ blow;

And, with your ninefold harmony,
Make up full consort to the angelick symphony.

XIV.

For, if such holy song
Enwrap our fancy long,

Time will run back, and fetch the age of gold;

And speckled Vanity

Will sicken soon and die,

And leprous Sin will melt from earthly mould; And Hell itself will pass away,

And leave her dolorous mansions to the peering day.

XV.

Yea, Truth and Justice then

Will down return to men,

Orb'd in a rainbow; and, like glories wearing,

Mercy will sit between,

Thron'd in celestial sheen,

With radiant feet the tissued clouds down steering;

And Heaven, as at some festival,

Will open wide the gates of her high palace hall.

XVI.

But wisest Fate says no,

This must not yet be so,

The Babe yet lies in smiling infancy,

That on the bitter cross

Must redeem our loss;

So both himself and us to glorify :

Yet first, to those ychain'd in sleep,

The wakeful trump of doom must thunder through the deep;

XVII.

With such a horrid clang

As on mount Sinai rang,

While the red fire and smouldring clouds out

brake:

The aged earth aghast,

With terrour of that blast,

Shall from the surface to the center shake;

When, at the world's last session,

The dreadful Judge in middle air shall spread his throne.

XVIII.

And then at last our bliss

Full and perfect is,

But now begins; for, from this happy day, The old Dragon, under ground

In straiter limits bound,

Not half so far casts his usurped sway;
And, wroth to see his kingdom fail,
Swindges the scaly horrour of his folded tail.

XIX.

The oracles are dumb,

No voice or hideous hum

Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving. Apollo from his shrine

Can no more divine,

With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving,

No nightly trance, or breathed spell,

Inspires the pale-ey'd priest from the prophetick cell.

XX.

The lonely mountains o'er,

And the resounding shore,

A voice of weeping heard and loud lament; From haunted spring and dale,

Edg'd with poplar pale,

The parting Genius is with sighing sent; With flower-inwoven tresses torn

The Nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets

mourn.

XXI.

In consecrated earth,

And on the holy hearth,

The Lars, and Lemures, moan with midnight plaint;

In urns, and altars round,

A drear and dying sound

Affrights the Flamens at their service quaint;

And the chill marble seems to sweat,

While each peculiar Power foregoes his wonted seat

XXII.

Peor and Baälim

Forsake their temples dim,