The shepherds on the lawn, Or e'er the point of dawn, Sat simply chatting in a rustic row; Full little thought they then, That the mighty Pan Was kindly come to live with them below; Perhaps their loves, or else their sheep, For if such holy song Inwrap 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, Was all that did their silly thoughts so busy And leave her dolorous mansions to the peering keep. When such music sweet Their hearts and cars 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 pleasures loath to lose, day. Yea, Truth and Justice then Will down return to men, Orbed in a rainbow; and, like glories wearing, Mercy will sit between, Throned in celestial sheen; With radiant feet the tissued clouds down steering; With thousand echoes still prolongs each heaven- And Heaven, as at some festival, ly close. Nature that heard such sound, Beneath the hollow round Of Cynthia's seat, the airy 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 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, Must redeem our loss: So both himself and us to glorify: Could hold all Heaven and earth in happier union. The wakeful trump of doom must thunder through At last surrounds their sight A globe of circular light. the deep! With such a horrid clang That with long beams the shamefaced night ar- As on Mount Sinai rang, rayed; The helmed cherubim, And sworded seraphim, While the red fire and smouldering clouds outbrake: The aged earth aghast, Are seen in glittering ranks with wings dis- With terror of that blast, played; Harping in loud and solemn choir, Shall from the surface to the centre shake; When, at the world's last session, With unexpressive notes to Heaven's new-born The dreadful Judge in middle air shall spread his Heir, And bid the weltering waves their oozy channel Swindges the scaly horror of his folded tail. keep. Ring out, ye crystal spheres, Once bless our human cars, (If ye have power to touch our senses so;) And let your silver chime Move in melodious time, And let the base of Heaven's deep organ blow; The oracles are dumb, No voice or hideous hum Runs through the arched roof in words deceiv ing. 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-eyed priest from the prophetic cell Peor and Baalim Forsake their temples dim, With that twice battered God of Palestine;* And mooned Ashtaroth, Heaven's queen and mother both, Now sits not girt with tapers' holy shine; muz 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, So when the sun in bed,. Curtained with cloudy red, Pillows his chin upon an orient wave, Troop to the infernal jail, Each fettered ghost slips to his several grave; And the yellow skirted fayes, Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-love maze. But see, the Virgin blest Time is our tedious song should here have ending, Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attend. And all about the courtly stable Bright harnessed angels sit in order serviceable. THE PASSION. EREWHILE of music, and ethereal mirth, Thum-Soon swallowed up in dark and long outliving night. For now to sorrow must I tune my song, So, Which he for us did freely undergo: Most perfect Hero, tried in heaviest plight He, sovereign Priest, stooping his regal head, Trampling the unshowered grass with lowings His starry front low rooft beneath the skies: loud: Nor can he be at rest Within his sacred chest; Naught but profoundest hell can be his shroud; In vain with timbrelled anthems dark O what a mask was there, what a disguise: The sable-stoled sorcerers bear his worshipped ark. These latest scenes confine my roving verse; He feels from Judah's land 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, To this horizon is my Phœbus bound: Of lute, or viol still, more apt for mournful things. Can in his swaddling bands control the damned crew. Over the pole thy thickest mantle throw, "That twice-battered God of Palestine"-Dagon, first martered by Samson, then by the ark of God. • "Cremona's trump doth sound"—alluding to Christiad of Vida, a native of Cremona. And work my flattered fancy to belief, When once our heavenly guided souls shall climb; My sorrows are too dark for day to know: The leaves should all be black whereon I write, And letters, where my tears have washed, a wannish white. See, see the chariot, and those rushing wheels, In pensive trance, and anguish, and ecstatic fit. Mine eye hath found that sad sepulchral rock For sure so well instructed are my tears, 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. ON TIME. FLY, envious Time, till thou run out thy race; So little is our loss, So little is thy gain! For when as each thing bad thou hast entombed, And joy shall overtake us as a flood, When every thing that is sincerely good And perfectly divine, Attired with stars, we shall for ever sit, Triumphing over Death, and Chance, and thee, O Time. UPON THE CIRCUMCISION. YE flaming powers, and winged warriors bright His infancy to seize ! O more exceeding love, or law more just! And the full wrath beside Of vengeful justice bore for out excess; And seals obedience first, with wounding smart, This day; but O, ere long, Huge pangs and strong Will pierce more near his heart. AT A SOLEMN MUSIC. BLEST pair of Syrens, pledges of heavenly joy, With saintly shout, and solemn jubiiee; With truth, and peace, and love, shall ever shine Their loud uplifted angel-trumpets blow; As once we did, till disproportioned sin To their great Lord, whose love their motions swayed In perfect diapason, whilst they stood In first obedience, and state of good. O may we soon again renew that song, And keep in tune with Heaven, till God ere long To his celestial concert us unite, To live with him, and sing in endless morn of light! AN EPITAPH ON THE MARCHIONESS OF WINCHESTER. THIS rich marble doth inter To house with darkness, and with death. Her high birth, and graces sweet, So have I teen some tender slip, And those pearls of dew she wears, Whilst thou, bright Saint, high sit'st in glory |