O’er all his brethren he shall reign as king,

75 Yet every one shall make him underling, And those that cannot live from him asun ler Ungratefully shall strive to keep him under, In worth and excellence he shall out-go them, Yet, being above them, he Mall be below them ; 86 From others he shall stand in need of nothing, Yet on his brothers shall depend for clothing. To find a foe it shall not be his hap, And peace shall lull him in her flowery lap; Yet fall he live in strife, and at his door Devouring war shall never cease to roar : Yea it shall be his natural property To harbour those that are at enmity. What power, what force, what mighty spell, if not Your learned hands, can loose this Gordian knot? go

85

The next Quantity and Quality spake in prose, then

Relation was callid by his name.
RIVERS arise ; whether thou be the son
Of utmost Tweed, or Oose, or gulphy Dun,
Or Trent, whn like some earth-born giant spreads
His thirty arms along th' indented meads,
Or sullen Mole that runneth underneath,

95. Or Severn swift, guilty of maiden's death, Or rocky Avon, or of sedgy Lee, Or coaly Tine, or ancient hallow'd Dee, Or Humber loud that keeps the Scythian's name, Or Medway smooth, or royal towred Thame. [The rest was prose.]

III. On

100

T

III.
On the MORNING of CHRIST'S NATIVITY.

Compos’d 1629.

I.
HIS is the month, and this the happy morn,

Wherein the Son of Heav'n's eternal King,
Of wedded Maid and Virgin Mother born,
Our great redemption from above did bring;
For so the holy sages once did fing,

S
That he our deadly forfeit should release,
And with his Father work us a perpetual peace.

II.
That glorious form, that light unsufferable,
And that far-beaming blaze of majesty,
Wherewith he wont at Heav'n's high council-table 10
To fit the midst of Trinal Unity,
He laid aside; and here with us to be,

Forsook the courts of everlasting day,
And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay.

III.
Say heav'nly Muse, shall not thy sacred vein

IS
Afford a present to the Infant God?
Halt thou no verse, no hymn, or folemn strain,
to welcome him to this his new abode,
Now while the Heav'n by the sun's team untrod,

Hath took no print of the approaching light,
And all the spangled hoft keep watch in squadrons,

bright?

IV. Sec

IV.

See how from far upon the eastern road
The star-led wisards haste with odors sweet :
O run, prevent them with thy humble ode,
And lay it lowly at his blessed feet;

23 Have thou the honor first, thy Lord to greet,

And join thy voice unto the Angel quire, From out his secret altar touch'd with hallow'd fire.

30

35

I.
IT was the winter wild,
While the Heav'n-born child

All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies ;
Nature in awe to him
Had dofft her gawdy trim,

With her great Master so to sympathize :
It was no season then for her
To wanton with the sun her lusty paramour.

II.
Only with speeches fair
She woo's the gentle air

To hide her guilty front with innocent snow,
And on her naked shame,
Pollute with sinful blame,

The saintly veil of maiden white to throw,
Confounded, that her Maker's eyes
Should look so near upon her foul deformities.

40

III. But

55

III. But he her fears to cease,

45 Sent down the meek-ey'd Peace ;

She, crown'd with olive green, came softly sliding Down through the turning sphere His ready harbinger,

With turtle wing the amorous clouds dividing, 50 And waving wide her myrtle wand, She strikes an universal peace through sea and land.

IV.
No war, or battel's found
Was heard the world around :

The idle spear and shield were high up hung,
The hooked chariot stood,
Unstain'd with hostile blood,

The trumpet spake not to the armed throng,
And kings fat still with awful eye,
As if they surely knew their sovran Lord was by. 60

V.
But peaceful was the night,
Wherein the Prince of light

His reign of peace upon the earth began :
The winds with wonder whist
Smoothly the waters kist,

Whispering new joys to the mild ocean,
Who now hath quite forgot to rave,
While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmed wave.

65

VOL. III.

VI. The

75

VI. The stars with deep amaze Stand fix'd in stedfast gaze,

70
Bending one way their precious influence,
And will not take their flight,
For all the morning light,

Or Lucifer that often warn'd them thence;
But in their glimmering orbs did glow,
Until their Lord himself bespake and bid them go.

VII.
And though the shady gloom
Had given day her room,

The sun himself withheld his wonted speed, And hid his head for shame,

80 As his inferior fame

The new inlighten'd world no more should need ; He faw a greater sun appear Than his bright throne, or burning axletree, could bear.

VIII.
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,
Was all that did their silly thoughts so busy keep.

85

90

IX. When