And sworded seraphim,

Are seen in glittering ranks with wings displayed,

Harping in loud and solemn quire,
With unexpressive notes, to Heaven's
new-born heir.

Such music as 't is said
Before was never made,

But when of old the sons of morning
sung,

While the Creator great

His constellations set,

And the well-balanced world on hinges hung,

And cast the dark foundations deep, And bid the weltering waves their oozy channel keep.

Ring out, ye crystal spheres,
Once bless our human ears,

If ye have power to touch our senses so;
And let your silver chime
Move in melodious time;

And let the bass of Heaven's deep organ

blow;

And, with your ninefold harmony,
Make up full concert to the angelic sym-
phony.

For, if such holy song
Enwrap our fancy long,

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

And speckled Vanity
Will sicken soon and die,

And leprous Sin will melt from earthly
mould;

And Hell itself will pass away,
And leave her dolorous mansions to the
peering day.

Yea, Truth and Justice then
Will down return to men,

Orbed in a rainbow; and, like glories
wearing,

Mercy will sit between,
Throned in celestial sheen,

With radiant feet the tissued clouds
down steering;

And Heaven, as at some festival, Will open wide the gates of her high palace hall.

But wisest Fate says no,
This must not yet be so;

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

Must redeem our loss,

37

So both himself and us to glorify: Yet first, to those ychained in sleep, The wakeful trump of doom must thunder through the deep,

With such a horrid clang
As on Mount Sinai rang,
While the red fire and smouldering
clouds outbrake;

The aged earth aghast,
With terror of that blast,

Shall from the surface to the centre
shake;

When, at the world's last session, The dreadful Judge in middle air shall spread his throne.

And then at last our bliss,
Full and perfect is,

But now begins; for, from this happy
day,

The old dragon, underground,
In straiter limits bound,

Not half so far casts his usurpéd sway; And, wroth to see his kingdom fail, Swinges the scaly horror of his folded tail.

The oracles are dumb;
No voice or hideous hum

Runs through the archéd roof in words
deceiving.
Apollo from his shrine
Can no more divine,

With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving.

No nightly trance, or breathéd 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 mourn 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 Baälim

Forsake their temples dim

With that twice-battered God of Pales-
tine;

And moonéd Ashtaroth,
Heaven's queen and mother both,
Now sits not girt with tapers' holy
shine;

The Libyac Hammon shrinks his horn;
In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded
Thammuz mourn.

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,

Troop to the infernal jail,

Each fettered 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-teeméd star
Hath fixed her polished car,

Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending;

And all about the courtly stable Bright-harnessed angels sit in order serviceable.

SONNETS.

ON ARRIVING AT THE AGE OF TWENTY

THREE.

Naught but profoundest hell can be his shroud;

In vain with timbrelled anthems dark

of youth,

Stolen on his wing my three-and-twentieth year!

My hasting days fly on with full career, But my late spring no bud or blossom

showeth. Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth,

That I to manhood am arrived so near, And inward ripeness doth much less appear,

That some more timely-happy spirits endu'th.

shipped ark.

He feels from Judah's land
The dreaded infant's hand,

The rays of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyne;

Nor all the gods beside

Longer dare abide,

Not Typhon huge ending in snaky twine;

Our babe, to show his Godhead true, Can in his swaddling bands control the damnéd crew.

So, when the sun in bed,
Curtained with cloudy red,

Pillows his chin upon an orient wave, The flocking shadows pale

It shall be still in strictest measure even To that same lot, however mean or high, Toward which Time leads me, and the will of Heaven;

All is, if I have grace to use it so,
As ever in my great Taskmaster's eye.

ON HIS BLINDNESS.

WHEN I consider how my light is spent, Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,

And that one talent, which is death to

hide,

Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent

To serve therewith my Maker, and present

THOMAS ELWOOD.

39

Than he went through before; He that into God's kingdom comes Must enter by his door.

Come, Lord, when grace has made me meet

Thy blessed face to see;
For if thy work on earth be sweet,
What will thy glory be?

Then shall I end my sad complaints,
And weary, sinful days;

And join with the triumphant saints
That sing Jehovah's praise.

My knowledge of that life is small,
The eye of faith is dim;

But 't is enough that Christ knows all,
And I shall be with him.

T'accompany my solitude: Although rebellion do my body bind, My king alone can captivate my mind.

41

Books should, not business, entertain

the light,

LIBERTY.

My house a cottage more
Than palace; and should fitting be
For all my use, no luxury.

My garden painted o'er

With Nature's hand, not Art's; and pleasures yield,

Horace might envy in his Sabine field.

Thus would I double my life's fading

space;

not bind,

No other law shall shackle me;

Slave to myself I will not be :
Nor shall my future actions be confined
By my own present mind.

Who by resolves and vows engaged does stand

For days that yet belong to Fate,
Does, like an unthrift, mortgage his

estate

Before it falls into his hand.

race.

And in this true delight,

These unbought sports, this happy state, I would not fear, nor wish, my fate;

But boldly say each night, To-morrow let my sun his beams display, Or in clouds hide them; I have lived today.

All that he does receive does always owe; And still as time comes in, it goes away, Not to enjoy, but debts to pay. Unhappy slave! and pupil to a bell! Which his hour's work, as well as hours, does tell!

Unhappy to the last, the kind releasing knell.