XXV.

He feels from Juda's land

The dreaded Infant's hand,

The of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyn; rays Nor all the Gods beside,

Longer dare abide,

Not Typhon huge ending in snaky twine:

Our babe, to show his Godhead true,

225

[crew. Can in his swaddling bands control the damned

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 th' infernal jail,

230

Each fetter'd ghost slips to his several grave;

And the yellow-skirted Fayes

[maze. Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-lov'd

231 chin] T. Warton has not remarked the use of this word in old poetry; when it brought with it no associations of familiarity or burlesque. Chapman's Hom. Il. p. 113, 'Both goddesses let fall their chins.' Odyss. p. 303. 310, Jove shook his sable chin.' The Ballad of Gil Morrice, 158, 'And kiss'd baith mouth and chin,' 169, And syne she kiss'd his bluidy cheeke, and syne his bluidy chin.' And Percy's Reliques, iii. 57, Our Lady bore up her chinne.'

་

232 shadows] M. Bowle refers to Mids. Night Dream, act iii. sc. ult.

'And yonder shines,' &c.

XXVII.

But see the Virgin blest

Hath laid her Babe to rest,

[ing;

Time is our tedious song should here have endHeav'n's youngest teemed star

Hath fix'd her polish'd car,

240

Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attend

And all about the courtly stable

[ing;

Bright-harness'd Angels sit in order serviceable.

THE PASSION.

I.

EREWHILE of music, and ethereal mirth,
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 sing;
But headlong joy is ever on the wing,
In wintry solstice like the shorten'd light
Soon swallow'd up in dark and long out-living night.

5

244 harness'd] Exodus, xiii. 18. The children of Israel went up harnessed out of the land of Egypt.'

divide] Spens. F. Queen. iii, i. 40.

Newton.

And all the while sweet music did divide
Her looser notes with Lydian harmony.'

Hor. Od. i. xv. 15.

'Imbelli cithara carmina divides.' Warton.

II.

For now to sorrow must I tune my song,
And set my harp to notes of saddest woe,

Which on our dearest Lord did seize ere long, 10
Dangers, and snares, and wrongs, and worse thar
Which he for us did freely undergo: [80,

Most perfect Hero, tried in heaviest plight

Of labours huge and hard, too hard for human wight!

III.

15

He sovereign priest stooping his regal head,
That dropp'd with odorous oil down his fair eyes,
Poor fleshly tabernacle entered,

His starry front low-roof'd 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 Phœbus bound;
His god-like acts, and his temptations fierce,
And former sufferings other where are found; 25
Loud o'er the rest Cremona's trump doth sound;
Me softer airs befit, and softer strings

Of lute, or viol still, more apt for mournful things. 26 Cremona's trump] Vida's Christiad.

V.

0

Befriend me, Night, best patroness of grief,
Over the pole thy thickest mantle throw,
And work my flatter'd fancy to belief,
That Heaven and Earth are colour'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 wash'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 bear me where the tow'rs of Salem stood,
Once glorious tow'rs, now sunk in guiltless blood:
There doth my soul in holy vision sit

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,
Yet on the soften'd quarry would I score
My plaining verse as lively as before;

30 Over] So P. L. iv. 609.

'And o'er the dark her silver mantle throw.' Steevens.

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, 50
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 beguil'd)

Might think th' 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,
Call on the lazy leaden-stepping hours,

Whose speed is but the heavy plummet's pace;
And glut thyself with what thy womb devours,
Which is no more than what is false and vain, 5

51 a weeping] Jeremiah, ix. 10. For the mountains will I take up a weeping,' &c. Warton.

* In Milton's MS. written with his own hand,—' On Time. To be set on a clock-case.' Warton.

leaden-stepping hours] Carew's Poems, p. 78, ed. 1642.

They [the hours] move with leaden feet. A. Dyce.