Divinely-warbled voice Answering the stringèd noise, As all their souls in blissful rapture took: With thousand echoes still prolongs each heavenly close. Nature, that heard such sound Of Cynthia's1 seat the airy region thrilling, To think her part was done, And that her reign had here its last fulfilling: Could hold all heaven and earth in happier union. At last surrounds their sight A globe of circular light, That with long beams the shame-faced Night arrayed; The helmed cherubim And swordèd seraphim Are seen in glittering ranks with wings displayed, With unexpressive notes, to Heaven's new-born heir, Such music as, 'tis said, Before was never made, But when of old the sons of morning sung His constellations set, And the well-balanced world on hinges hung, And bid the weltering waves their oozy channel keep. Ring out, ye crystal spheres! If ye have power to touch our senses so; And let your silver chime Move in melodious time; And let the bass of heaven's deep organ blow; Make up full consort to the angelic symphony. 1 The moon's. For, if such holy song Enwrap our fancy long, Time will run back, and fetch the age of gold; Will sicken soon and die, And leprous Sin will melt from earthly mould; And leave her dolorous mansions to the peering day. Yea, Truth and Justice then Will down return to men, Orbed in a rainbow; and, like glories wearing, Throned in celestial sheen, With radiant feet the tissued clouds down steering; Will open wide the gates of her high palace-hall. 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 ychained in sleep, The wakeful trump of doom must thunder through the deep, With such a horrid clang As on Mount Sinai rang, While the red fire and smouldering clouds outbrake: With terror of that blast, Shall from the surface to the centre shake, The dreadful Judge in middle air shall spread his throne. 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, The oracles are dumb; No voice or hideous hum Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving. Can no more divine, With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving. The lonely mountains o'er And the resounding shore A voice of weeping heard and loud lament; Edged with poplar pale, The parting Genius is with sighing sent; The nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn. In consecrated earth And on the holy hearth, The Lars and Lemures mourn with midnight plaint. In urns and altars round, A drear and dying sound Affrights the flamens1 at their service quaint; While each peculiar power forgoes his wonted seat. Peor5 and Baälim Forsake their temples dim, With that twice-battered god of Palestine; Heaven's queen and mother both, Now sits not girt with tapers' holy shine; The Libyc Hammon' shrinks his horn; In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz3 mourn. To move as a lash. 2 A Grecian divinity whose temple was at Delphi. Ghosts of the dead. 4 Priests. 5 The national god of the Moabites, it is thought. Plural nouns denoting the gods and goddesses of Syria and Palestine. 7 Jupiter, as worshipped in Libya. His statue there had the head and horns of a ram. 8 A Phoenician god. And sullen Moloch,1 fled, Hath left in shadows dread 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 unshowered grass with lowings loud; Within his sacred chest; Nought but profoundest hell can be his shroud; The sable-stolèd sorcerers bear his worshiped ark. He feels from Juda's land The dreaded Infant's hand; The rays of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyn;" Longer dare abide, Not Typhon huge ending in snaky twine: Our Babe, to show his Godhead true, So, when the Sun in bed, Curtained with cloudy red, Pillows his chin upon an orient wave, The flocking shadows pale Troop to the infernal jail, Each fettered ghost slips to his several grave; 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: 1 National god of the Ammonites. 2 Eyes. Heaven's youngest-teemèd star Hath fixed her polished car, Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending; Bright-harnessed angels sit in order serviceable. FURTHER READING.-L'Allegro and Il Penseroso (in pamphlet form, by Clark & Maynard, as also the whole of Bk. I. of Paradise Lost). Of Paradise Lost read Bk. I., II. 1-74; 242-330. Bk. II., 50-467; 629-883. Bk. III., 1-55. Bk. IV., 411-735. Bk. V., 153-208. Bk. VI., 171-353; 507-669; 824-892. Bk. VIII., 452-559; 618-753. Bk. IX., 205-392; 494-795. Bk. X., 845-965. Bk. XI., 226-285. Bk. XII., 606–649. |