The idle spear and shield were high up hung; The hooked chariot stood

Unstained with hostile blood;

The trumpet spake not to the armed throng; And kings sat still with awful eye,

As if they surely knew their sovereign Lord was by.

V.

But peaceful was the night

Wherein the Prince of Light

His reign of peace upon the earth began :

The winds, with wonder whist,

Smoothly the waters kissed,

Whispering new joys to the mild ocean,

Who now hath quite forgot to rave,

While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmed wave.

VI.

The stars with deep amaze

Stand fixed in steadfast gaze,

Bending one way their precious influence;

And will not take their flight

For all the morning light,

Or Lucifer that often warned them thence ;

But in their glimmering orbs did glow

Until their Lord himself bespake, and bid them go.

VII.

And though the shady gloom

Had given day her room,

The sun himself withheld his wonted speed,

And hid his head for shame,

As his inferior flame

The new-enlightened world no more should need ;

He saw a greater sun appear

Than his bright throne or burning axle-tree could bear.

VIII.

The shepherds on the lawn,

Or e'er the point of dawn,

Sat simply chatting in a rustic row;

Full little thought they then

That the mighty Pan

Was kindly come to live with them below; Perhaps their loves, or else their sheep,

Was all that did their silly thoughts so busy keep.

When such music sweet

IX.

Their hearts and ears did greet

As never was by mortal finger strookDivinely-warbled voice

Answering the stringed noise,

As all their souls in blissful rapture took;

The air, such pleasure loath to lose,

With thousand echoes still prolongs each heavenly close.

X.

Nature, that heard such sound

Beneath the hollow round

Of Cynthia's seat, the airy region thrilling,

Now was almost won

To think her part was done,

And that her reign had here its last fulfilling ;

She knew such harmony alone

Could hold all heaven and earth in happier union.

XI.

At last surrounds their sight

A globe of circular light,

That with long beams the shamefaced night arrayed; The helmed Cherubim,

And sworded Seraphim,

Are seen in glittering ranks with wings displayed,

Harping in loud and solemn choir,

With unexpressive notes, to Heaven's new-born Heir

Such music (as 't is said)

Before was never made,

XII.

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.

XIII.

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 consort to the angelic symphony.

XIV.

For if such holy song

Inwrap 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.

XV.

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.

XVI.

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,

So both Himself and us to glorify.

Yet first to those ychained in sleep

The wakeful trump of doom must thunder through the deep,

XVII.

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.

XVIII.

And then at last our bliss

Full and perfect is

But now begins; for from this happy day

The old Dragon, under ground

In straiter limits bound,

Not half so far casts his usurped sway,

And, wroth to see his kingdom fail,
Swinges the scaly horror of his folded tail.

The oracles are dumb;

XIX.

No voice or hideous hum

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

Can no more divine,

With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving; No nightly trance, or breathed spell,

Inspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell.

XX.

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,

XXI.

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 Power foregoes his wonted seat.

Peor and Baälim

XXII.

Forsake their temples dim,

With that twice-battered god of Palestine ;

And mooned Ashtaroth,

Heaven's queen and mother both,

Now sits not girt with taper's holy shine;

The Libyc Hammon shrinks his horn;

In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz

mourn.