In wintry folftice like the shorten'd light

Soon swallow'd up in dark and long out-living night.

II.

For now to forrow muft I tune my fong,
And fet my harp to notes of faddeft woe,
Which on our dearest Lord did seise ere long,

10

Dangers, and fnares, and wrongs, and worse than so, Which he for us did freely undergo :

Most perfect Hero, try'd in heaviest plight

Of labours huge and hard, too hard for human

wight!

III.

He fov'ran Priest stooping his regal head,

That dropt with odorous oil down his fair eyes, Poor fleshly tabernacle entered,

15

19

His ftarry 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 brethrens
fide.

IV.

These latest scenes confine my roving verse,

To this horison is my Phœbus bound;

17. Poor fiefbly tabernacle entered.] So in PARAD. REG, B. iv. 598.

Remote from heav'n, infhrin'd

IN FLESHLY TABERNACLE, and human form.

See Note on IL. PENS. v. 91.

His

His godlike acts, and his temptations fierce,
And former fufferings other where are found; 25
Loud o'er the reft Cremona's trump doth found;
Me fofter airs befit, and fofter ftrings

Of lute, or viol still, more apt for mournful things.

V.

Befriend me Night, beft 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 colour'd with my woe; My forrows are too dark for day to know:

The leaves should all be black whereon I write,

26. Loud d'er the reft Cremona's trump.-] Our poet feems here to be of opinion, that Vida's CHRISTIAD was the finest Latin poem on a religious fubject; but perhaps it is excelled by Sannazarius De PARTU VIRGINIS, a poem of more vigour and fire than this work of Vida. Dr. J. WARTON.

28. Of lute, or viol ftill.] Gentle, not noify, not loud, as is the trumpet. It is applied to found in the fame fenfe, B. KINGS, 19. 12. "A STILL mall voice." And in FIRST P. HENR. V. A. iv.

i.

S. i.

The hum of either army STILLY founds.

And in IL PENS. V. 127.

Or ufher'd with a fhower STILL.

This is in oppofition to winds piping LOUD, in the verse before. Its application is not often to found. Hence still-barn, of a child born dead.

30. Over the pole thy thickeft mantle throw.] So in Buckhurft's InDUCTION, as Mr. Bowle obferves, it. iv.

Again, ft. xl.

Loe, the Night with miftie MANTELS fpred.

Let the Nightes black miftye MANTELS rife.

And

And letters where my tears have wash'd a wannish

white.

VI.

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

To bear me where the tow'rs of Salem ftood,

Once glorious tow'rs, now funk in guiltless blood;
There doth my foul in holy vifion fit

In penfive trance, and anguish, and ecstatic fit.

Mine

VII.

eye hath found that fad fepulchral rock

That was the cafket of Heav'n's richeft ftore,

4I

And here though grief my feeble hands up lock,
Yet on the foften'd quarry would I score

My plaining verse as lively as before;

For fure fo well inftructed are my tears,

That they would fitly fall in order'd characters.

43. Mine eye hath found that fad fepulchral rock,
That was the casket of Heav'n's richest fore,
And here though grief my feeble hands uplock,
Yet on the foften'd quarry would 1 Score

46

My plaining verfe. He feems to have been ftruck with reading Sandys's defcription of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerufalem; and to have catched fympathetically Sandys's fudden impulfe to break forth into a devout fong at the aweful and infpiring fpectacle. "It is a "frozen zeal that will not be warmed with the fight thereof. And "oh, that I could retaine the effects that it wrought with an unfaint"ing perfeverance! Who then did dictate this hymne to my re"deemer, &c." TRAVELS, p. 167. edit. 1627. The firft is, 1615.

O o

VIII. Or

VIII.

Or should I thence hurried on viewlefs wing, 50
Take up a weeping on the mountains wild,
The gentle neighbourhood of grove and spring
Would foon unbofom all their echoes mild,
And I (for grief is eafily beguil'd)

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

This fubject the Author finding to be above the years he had, when he wrote it, and nothing satisfied with what was begun, left it unfinished.

50.

Hurried on viewlefs wing.] See Coм. v. 92. HURRIED is ufed here in an acceptation lefs familiar than at prefent. And in other places. PARAD. L. B. ii. 937. Of Satan's flight.

Again, ibid. 603. The fallen angels are to pine for ages in frost, "thence HURRIED back to fire." And, B. v. 778.

All this hafte

Of midnight march, and HURRIED meeting here.

In all these paffages it is applied to preternatural motion or imaginary beings.

51. Take up a weeping on the mountains wild.] The expreffion is from JEREMIAH, ix. 10. "For the mountains will I TAKE UP & WEEPING and wailing, &c."

66

Upon

YE

Upon the CIRCUMCISION.

E flaming Pow'rs, and winged Warriors bright That erft with mufic, and triumphant fong, First heard by happy watchful shepherds ear, So fweetly fung your joy the clouds along Through the foft filence of the lift'ning night; 5 Now mourn, and if fad fhare with us to bear Your fiery effence can distil no tear,

Burn in your fighs, and borrow

Seas wept from our deep forrow:

He who with all Heav'n's heraldry whilere
Enter'd the world, now bleeds to give us cafe;

7. Your fiery effence can diftil no tear,

ΤΟ

Burn in your fighs. -] Milton is puzzled how to reconcile the tranfcendent effence of angels with the infirmities of men. In PARADISE LOST, having made the angel Gabriel share in a repast of fruit with Adam, he finds himself under a neceffity of getting rid of an obvious objection, that material food does not belong to intellectual or ethereal fubitances: and to avoid certain circumstances humiliating and difgraceful to the dignity of the angelic nature, the natural confequences of concoction and digeftion, he forms a new theory of tranf piration, fuggefted by the wonderful tranfmutations of chemistry. In the prefent inftance, he wishes to make angels weep. But being of the effence of fire, they cannot produce water. At length he recollects, that fire may produce burning fighs.

10. He who with all Heav'n's heraldry whilere

Enter'd the world. --] Great pomps and proceffions are proclaimed or preceded by heralds. It is the fame idea in PARAD. L. B. i. 752.

Meanwhile the WINGED HERALDS by command

Of fovran power, with aweful ceremony,

And trumpets found, throughout the hoft proclaim

A folemn council, &c.