SAMSON AGONISTES.
POEMS on feveral OCCASIONS.
On the death of a fair Infant, dying of a Cough.
At a Vacation Exercife in the College.
On the MORNING of CHRIST's NATIVITY. The PASSION.
The Fifth ODE of Horace, Lib. 1. English'd.
On the new-forcers of conscience under the Long PARLA
On the religious memory of Mrs. Catharine Thompson. To the Lord General FAIRFAX.
Who ere while the happy garden fung,
By one man's disobedience loft, now fing
Recover'd Paradife to all mankind,
By one man's firm obedience fully try'd Through all temptation, and the tempter foil'd 5 In all his wiles, defeated and repuls'd, And Eden rais'd in the waste wilderness.
Thou Spirit who ledst this glorious eremite Into the defert, his victorious field,
Against the spiritual foe, and brought'ft him thence 10 By proof th' undoubted Son of God, inspire, As thou art wont, my prompted fong else mute, And bear through highth or depth of nature's bounds With profp'rous wing full fumm'd, to tell of deeds Above heroic, though in fecret done,
And unrecorded left through many an age, Worthy t' have not remain'd fo long unfung.
Now had the great Proclamer, with a voice
More awful than the found of trumpet, cry'd Repentance, and Heav'n's kingdom nigh at hand 20 To all baptiz'd: to his great baptifm flock'd With awe the regions round, and with them came From Nazareth the son of Joseph deem'd To the flood Jordan, came as then obscure, Unmark'd, unknown; but him the Baptift soon 25 Defcry'd, divinely warn'd, and witness bore As to his worthier, and would have resign'd, To him his heav'nly office, nor was long His witness unconfirm'd: on him baptiz'd Heav'n open'd, and in likeness of a dove The spi'rit descended, while the Father's voice From Heav'n pronounc'd him his beloved Son. That heard the Adversary, who roving still About the world, at that assembly fam'd Would not be laft, and with the voice divine Nigh thunder-ftruck, th' exalted man, to whom Such high atteft was giv'n, a while survey'd With wonder, then with envy fraught and rage Flies to his place, nor rests, but in mid air To council fummons all his mighty peers, Within thick clouds and dark ten-fold involv'd, A gloomy confistory; and them amidst With looks aghaft and fad he thus bespake.
O ancient Pow'rs of air and this wide world, For much more willingly I mention air, This our old conquest, than remember Hell,
Our hated habitation; well ye know
How many ages, as the years of men, This universe we have poffefs'd, and rul'd In manner at our will th' affairs of earth, Since Adam and his facil confort Eve Loft Paradise deceiv'd by me, though fince With dread attending when that fatal wound Shall be inflicted by the feed of Eve Upon my head: long the decrees of Heav'n Delay, for longest time to him is short; And now too foon for us the circling hours This dreaded time have compafs'd, wherein we Must bide the stroke of that long threaten'd wound, At least if so we can, and by the head Broken be not intended all our power
To be infring'd, our freedom and our being,
In this fair empire won of earth and air;
For this ill news' I bring, the woman's feed Deftin'd to this, is late of woman born:
His birth to our just fear gave no small cause, But his growth now to youth's full flow'r, difplaying All virtue, grace, and wifdom to achieve Things higheft, greatest, multiplies my fear. Before him a great prophet, to proclame His coming, his sent harbinger, who all Invites, and in the confecrated ftream Pretends to wash off fin, and fit them fo Purified to receive him pure, or rather
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