220

XXIV.
Nor is Osiris seen
In Memphian grove or green,

Trampling the unshower'd grass with lowings loud :
Nor can he be at rest
Within his facred chest,

Nought but profoundest Hell can be his shroud;
In vain with timbrel'd anthems dark
The fable-stoled sorcerers bear his worshipt ark.

XXV.
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,

225
Not Typhon huge ending in snaky twine :
Our babe, to show his Godhead true,
Can in his swadling-bands controll the damned crew.

XXVI.
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 Nips to his several grave,
And the yellow-fkirted Fayes

235 Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-lov'd

230

XXVII.
But see the Virgin blest
Hath laid her Babe to rest,

Time is our tedious fong should here have ending: Heaven's youngest teemed star

240 Hath fix'd her polish'd car,

Her fleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending : And all about the courtly stable Bright-harnest Angels fit in order serviceable.

Wherewith the stage of air and earth did ring, And joyous news of heav'nly Infant's birth, My Muse with Angels did divide to singi But headlong joy is ever on the wing,

5 In wintry folftice like the shorten'd light Soon swallow'd up in dark and long out-living night.

II. For now to forrow must I tune my song, And fet 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, try'd in heaviest plight Of labors huge and hard, too hard for human wight!

III. He

IO

III.
He sovran Priest stooping his regal head,

15
That dropt with odorous oil down his fair eyes,
Poor fleshly tabernacle entered,
His starry front low-rooft beneath the skies;
O 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.

IV. These latest scenes confine my roving verse, To this horizon is my Phobus bound; His Godlike acts, and his temptations fierce, And former sufferings other-where are found; 25 Loud c'er the rest Cremona's trump doth found;

Me softer airs befit, and softer strings
Of lute, or viol ftill, more apt for mournful things.

V.
Befriend me, Night, best patroness of grief,
Over the pole thy thickest mantle throw,

30
And work my flatter'd fancy to belief,
That Heav'n and Earth are color'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 wallı'd a wannish white.

35 VI. See, see the chariot, and those rushing wheels, That whirl'd the Prophet up at Chebar flood, My spirit some transporting Cherub feels,

To

To bear me where the towers of Salem stood,
Once glorious tow'rs, now sunk in guiltless blood ; 40

There doth my soul in holy vision fit
In pensive trance, and anguish, and ecstatic fit.

VII.
Mine eye hath found that sad sepulchral rock
That was the casket of Heav'n's richest store,
And here though grief my feeble hands up-lock, 45
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.

VIII.
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 beguild)

Might think th' infection of my sorrows loud 55 Had got a race of mourners on some pregnant cloud.

50

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 unfinish'd.

10

ON

T I ME.
"LY envious Time, till thou run out thy race,

Call on the lazy leaden-stepping hours,
Whose speed is but the heavy plummet's pace;
And glut thyself with wh thy womb deyours,
Which is no more than what is false and vain,

5 And merely mortal dross; So little is our loss, So little is thy gain. For when as each thing bad thou hast intomb'd, And last of all thy greedy felf consum’d, Then long Eternity shall greet our bliss With an individual kiss; And Joy shall overtake us as a flood, When every thing that is sincerely good And perfectly divine,

13 With truth, and peace, and love, Tall ever shine About the supreme throne Of him, t' whose happy-making sight alone When once our heay’nly-guided foul shall climb, Then all this earthy grofinefs quit, Attir'd with stars, we shall for ever sit, Triumphing over Death, and Chance, and thee, O

Time.

20

VI. UPON