From haunted spring and dale, Edg'd with poplar pale, 185 The parting Genius is with sighing sent; With flower-inwoven tresses torn The Nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn. XXI. 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 Pow'r forgoes his wonted seat. 190 195 Now its not girt with tapers' holy shine; The Libye Hammon shrinks his horn, In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz mourn. And sullen Moloch fled, Hath left in shadows dread XXIII. His burning idol all of blackest hue; In vain with cymbals' ring They call the grisly king, 205 199. "That twice-battered God of Palestine ;"....Dagon, rst battered by Samson then by the ark of God. In dismal dance about the furnace blue: 210 The brutish Gods of Nile as fast, Isis, and Orus, and the dog Anubis haste. Nor is Osiris seen XXIV.. In Memphian grove or green, Trampling the unshow'r'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 timbrel'd anthems dark The sable-stoled sorcerers bear his worshipp'd ark. He feels from Juda's land The dreaded Infant's hand, XXV. The rays of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyn; Nor all the Gods beside Longer dare abide, Not Tpyhon huge ending in snaky twine: Our babe, to show his Godhead true, Can in his swaddling bands control the dafined crew. So, when the sun in bed, Curtain'd with cloudy red, XXVI. Pillows his chiu upon au orient wave, The flocking shadows pale Troop to th' infernal jail, Each fetter'd ghost slips to his several grave; And the yellow-skirted fayes. 215 220 230 Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-lov'd maze. XXVII. But see, the Virgin blest Hath laid her Babe to rest; Time is our tedious song should here have ending; Heav'n's youngest-teemed star Hath fix'd her polish'd car, Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending : And all about the courtly stable Bright-harness'd Angels sit in order serviceable. IV. 240 THE PASSION. I. EREWHILE of music, and ethereal mirth, In wintry solstice like the shorten'd light, Soon swallow'd up in dark and long out-living night. 11. 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, Most perfet Hero, try'd in heaviest plight Of labours huge and hard, too hard for human wight! 10 III. He, sov'reign Priest, stooping his regal head, His starry front low-rooft beneath the skies: Yet more; the stroke of death he must abide, IV. These latest scenes confine my roving verse; To this horizon is my Phœbus bound; 15 20 His godlike acts, and his temptations fierce, 25 Of lute, or viol still, more apt for mournful things. V. Befriend me, Night, best patroness of grief; 30 And work my flatter'd fancy to belief, That Heav'n 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. VI. See, see the chariot, and those rushing wheels, That whirl'd the Prophet up at Chebar flood; 36 My spirit some transporting cherub feels, 26" Cremona's trump doth sound;.... alluding to the Christiad of Vida, a native of Cremona. 1 ! To bear me where the tow'rs of Salem stood, In pensive trance, and anguish, and ecstatic fit. Mine eye hath found that sad sepulchral rock 45 My plaining verse as lively as before; For sure so well instructed are my tears, Or should I thence, hurried on viewless wing, 50 Might think th' infection of my sorrows loud 55 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. 47 * |