The oracles are dumb, No voice or hideous hum Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving, 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. The lonely mountains o'er, And the resounding shore, A voice of weeping heard, and loud lament; From haunted spring and dale, Edged with poplar pale, The parting genius is with sighing sent: With flower-inwoven tresses torn, The nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn In consecrated earth, And on the holy hearth, The Lars and Lemures moan with midnight plaint; In urns, and altars round, A drear and dying sound Affrights the Flamens at their service quaint! And the chill marble seems to sweat, While each peculiar power foregoes his wonted seat. Peor and Baalim Forsake their temples dim, With that twice-batter'd god of Palestine; And mooned Ashtaroth, Heaven's queen and mother both, Now sits not girt with taper's holy shine; The Lybic Hammon shrinks his horn; In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammus mourn. Dagon. See 1 Samuel v. 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, Trampling the unshower'd grass with lowings loud: Nor can he be at rest Within his sacred chest ; Nought but profoundest hell can be his shroud: In vain with timbrell'd anthems dark The sable-stoled sorcerers bear his worshipp❜d ark. * 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 slips to his several grave; And the yellow-skirted fays Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-loved maze. But see! the Virgin blest Hath laid her babe to rest: Time is, our tedious song should here have ending: Heaven's youngest teemed star Hath fix'd her polish'd car, Her sleeping Lord with hand-maid lamp, attending: And all about the courtly stable Bright harness'd angels sit, in order serviceable. MILTON. EXTRACT FROM COMUS. SONG. SABRINA fair, Listen where thou art sitting, Goddess of the silver lake, Listen, and save. By all the nymphs that nightly dance And bridle in thy headlong wave, Sabrina rises and sings. By the rushy-fringed bank, Where grows the willow, and the osier dank, Thick set with agate, and the azure sheen Whilst from off the waters fleet MILTON. SATAN'S VISIT TO PARADISE. So on he fares, and to the border comes Now nearer, crowns with her enclosure green, Cedar, and pine, and fir, and branching palm, of stateliest view. Yet higher than their tops When God hath shower'd the earth; so lovely seem'd Sabean odours from the spicy shore Well pleased they slack their course, and many a league So entertain'd those odorous sweets the fiend. * Southward through Eden went a river large, Groves whose rich trees wept odorous gums and balm. If true, here only,) and of delicious taste: |