When fuch music sweet

IX.

Their hearts and ears did greet,

As never was by mortal finger ftrook, Divinely-warbled voice

Answering the ftringed noise,

As all their fouis in blissful rapture took :

The air, fuch pleasure loth to lose,

95

With thousand echoes ftill prolongs each heav'nly close.

X.

Nature that heard fuch found,

Beneath the hollow round

Of Cynthia's feat, the aery region thrilling,

Now was almost won

To think her part was done,

And that her reign had here its last fulfilling ;

She knew fuch harmony alone

Could hold all Heav'n and Earth in happier union.

XI.

At laft furrounds their fight

A globe of circular light,

105

That with long beams the fhame-fac'd night array'd;

The helmed Cherubim,

And fworded Seraphim,

Are feen in glittering ranks with wings display'd, Harping in loud and folemn quire,

115

With unexpreffive notes to Heaven's new-born Heir.

Such mufic (as 'tis faid)

Before was never made,

XII.

But when of old the fons of morning fung, While the Creator great

His conftellations fet,

And the well-balanc'd world on hinges hung, And caft the dark foundations deep,

120

And bid the weltering waves their oozy channel keep.

XIII.

Ring out, ye crystal Spheres,

Once blefs our human ears,

(If ye have power to touch our fenfes fo)

And let your filver chime

Move in melodious time,

125

And let the base of Heaven's deep organ blow, 130 And with your ninefold harmony

Make up full confort to th' angelic fymphony.

For if fuch holy fong

Inwrap our fancy long,

XIV.

Time will run back, and fetch the age of gold, 135

And speckled Vanity

Will ficken foon and die,

And leprous Sin will melt from earthly mold, And Hell itself will pass away,

And leave her dolorous manfions to the peering day.

XV. Yea

XV.

Yea Truth and Justice then

Will down return to men,

Orb'd in a rainbow; and like glories wearing

Mercy will fit between,

'Thron'd in celeftial sheen,

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With radiant feet the tiffued clouds down fteering, And Heav'n, as at fome feftival,

Will open wide the gates of her high palace hall.

But wifeft Fate fays no,

This must not yet be fo,

XVI.

The babe lies yet in fmiling infancy, That on the bitter cross

Muft redeem our lofs;

So both himself and us to glorify:

Yet first to those ychain'd in fleep,

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155

With terror of that blast,

Shall from the furface to the center fhake

When at the world's laft feffion,

160

The dreadful Judge in middle air shall spread his throne.

XVIII.

And then at laft our blifs

Full and perfect is,

But now begins; for from this happy day

Th' old Dragon under ground,

In ftraiter limits bound,

Not half fo far cafts his ufurped fway,

And wroth to fee his kingdom fail,

Swindges the fcaly horror of his folded tail.

The oracles are dumb,

No voice or hideous hum

XIX.

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170

Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving. Apollo from his shrine

Can no more divine,

With hollow fhriek the steep of Delphos leaving. No nightly trance, or breathed spell,

Infpires the pale-ey'd priest from the prophetic cell.

XX.

The lonely mountains o'er,

And the refounding shore,

A voice of weeping heard and loud lament; From haunted spring, and dale

Edg'd with poplar pale,

The parting Genius is with fighing fent ; With flower-inwoven treffes torn

185

The Nymphs in twilight fhade of tangled thickets

mourn.

XXI. In

XXI.

In confecrated earth,

And on the holy hearth,

190

The Lars and Lemures moan with midnight plaint;

In urns, and altars round,

A drear and dying found

Affrights the Flamens at their fervice quaint; And the chill marble feems to fweat,

195

While each peculiar Power foregoes his wonted feat.

Peor and Baälim

XXII.

Forfake their temples dim,

With that twice batter'd God of Palestine;

And mooned Ashtaroth,

Heav'n's queen and mother both,

Now fits not girt with tapers' holy fhine;

The Libyc Hammon fhrinks his horn,

200

In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz

mourn.

XXIII.

And fullen Moloch fled,

Hath left in fhadows dread

His burning idol all of blackest hue; In vain with cymbals' ring

They call the grisly king,

In difmal dance about the furnace blue; The brutish Gods of Nile as faft,

Ifs and Orus, and the dog Anubis, haste.

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210

XXIV. Nor