Nor is Ofiris feen

XXIV.

In Memphian grove or green,

Trampling the unshower'd grass with lowings loud:

Nor can he be at reft

Within his facred chest,

Nought but profoundest Hell can be his shroud; In vain with timbrel'd anthems dark

The fable-ftoled forcerers bear his worshipt ark.

220

of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyn;

225

Nor all the Gods befide

Longer dare abide,

Not Typhon huge ending in fnaky twine :

Our babe, to show his Godhead true,

Can in his fwadl'ng-bands controll the damned crew.

Troop to the infernal jail,

Each fetter'd ghoft flips to his feveral grave,

And the yellow-fkirted Fayes

235

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

maze.

XXVII. But

But fee the Virgin bleft

XXVII.

Hath laid her Babe to reft,

Time is our tedious song should here have ending: Heaven's youngest teemed ftar

Hath fix'd her polish'd car,

240

Her fleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending :

And all about the courtly stable

Bright-harnest Angels fit in order ferviceable.

E

REWHILE of mufic, and ethereal mirth,
Wherewith the stage of air and earth did ring,

And joyous news of heav'nly Infant's birth,

My Mufe with Angels did divide to fing;
But headlong joy is ever on the wing,

In wintry folftice like the shorten'd light

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

II.

For now to forrow must I tune my fong,

And fet my harp to notes of faddeft woe,

Which on our dearest Lord did feize ere long,

5

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

Most perfect Hero, try'd in heaviest plight

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

III. He

III.

He sovran Priest stooping his regal head,
That dropt with odorous oil down his fair eyes,
Poor fleshly tabernacle entered,

His ftarry front low-rooft beneath the skies;
O what a mask was there, what a disguise!

20

Yet more; the stroke of death he must abide, Then lies him meekly down fast by his brethren's fide.

IV.

These latest scenes confine my roving verfe,
To this horizon is my Phoebus bound;
His Godlike acts, and his temptations fierce,
And former fufferings other-where are found;
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.

ས.

Befriend me, Night, beft patronefs of grief,
Over the pole thy thickest mantle throw,
And work my flatter'd fancy to belief,

That Heav'n and Earth are color'd with my woe;
My forrows are too dark for day to know :

25

30

The leaves fhould all be black whereon I write, And letters where my tears have wash'd a wannish

white.

35

VI.

See, fee the chariot, and those rushing wheels,

That whirl'd the Prophet up at Chebar flood,

My spirit fome tranfporting Cherub feels,

Το

To bear me where the towers of Salem ftood,

Once glorious tow'rs, now funk in guiltless blood; 40 There doth my foul in holy vifion fit

In penfive trance, and anguish, and ecstatic fit.

Mine

eye

VII.

hath found that fad fepulchral rock

That was the casket of Heav'n's richest store,

And here though grief my feeble hands up-lock, 45 Yet on the soften'd quarry would I score

My plaining verfe as lively as before;

For fure fo well inftructed are my tears,

That they would fitly fall in order'd characters.

VIII.

Or fhould I thence hurried on viewless wing,
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 easily beguil'd)

50

Might think th' infection of my forrows loud

55

Had got a race of mourners on fome 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 unfinish'd.

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,
And merely mortal dross;

So little is our lofs,

So little is thy gain.

For when as each thing bad thou haft intomb'd,
And last of all thy greedy felf confum'd,

Then long Eternity fhall greet our bliss

With an individual kifs;

And Joy fhall overtake us as a flood,

When every thing that is fincerely good

And perfectly divine,

5

10

15

With truth, and peace, and love, fhall ever fhine

About the fupreme throne

Of him, t' whose happy-making fight alone

When once our heav'nly-guided foul shall climb,
Then all this earthy groffnefs quit,

Attir'd with stars, we fhall for ever fit,

20

Triumphing over Death, and Chance, and thee, O

Time.

VI. UPON