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A drear and dying sound

Affrights the Flamens at their service quaint;

And the chill marble seems to sweat,

Which each peculiar pow'r foregoes his wonted seat.

Peor and Baälim

Forsake their temples dim,

With that twice-batter'd God of Palestine;

And mooned Ashtaroth,

Heav'ns queen and mother both,

Now sits not girt with tapers' holy shine;

Tho Libyc Hammon shrinks his horn,

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In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz mourn.

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The sable-stoled sorcerers bear his worshipt ark.

Isis, and Orus, and the dog Anubis,

Nor is Osiris seen

In Memphian grove or green,

Trampling the unshow'r'd grass with lowings loud: 215 Nor can he be at rest

Within his sacred chest;

Naught but profoundest hell can be his shroud;

In vain with timbrell'd anthems dark

He feels from Juda's land

The dreaded Infant's hand,

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The rays of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyn; Nor all the gods beside

Longer dare abide,

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Nor Typhon huge ending in snaky twine:

Our Babe, to show his Godhead true,

Can in his swaddling bands control the damned crew.

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And the yellow-skirted Fayes

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

But see, the Virgin blest

Hath laid her Babe to rest;

Time is, our tedious song should here have ending;

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Heav'n's youngest-teemed star

Hath fix'd her polish'd car,

Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending:

And all about the courtly stable

Bright-harness'd angels sit in order serviceable.

THE PASSION.

EREWHILE of music, and ethereal mirth,
Wherewith the stage of air and earth did ring,
And joyous news of heav'nly Infant's birth,
My muse with Angels did divide to sing;
But headlong joy is ever on the wing,

In wintry solstice like the shorten'd light,

Soon swallow'd up in dark and long out-living night.
For now to sorrow must I tune my song,

Which on our dearest Lord did seize ere long,

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And set my harp to notes of saddest woe,

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Dangers, and snares, and wrongs, and worse than so,
Which he for us did freely undergo:

Most perfect Hero, tried in heaviest plight

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

He, sovran priest, stooping his regal head,

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That dropt with odorous oil down his fair eyes,

Poor fleshy tabernacle entered,

His starry front low-rooft beneath the skies:

O, what a mask was there, what a disguise!

Yet more; the stroke of death he must abide,

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Then lies him meekly down fast by his brethren's side.

These latest scenes confine my roving verse;
To this horizon is my Phoebus bound:
His god-like acts, and his temptations fierce,

And former sufferings, other where are found;
Loud o'er the rest Cremona's trump doth sound;
Me softer airs befit, and softer strings

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Of lute, or viol still, more apt for mournful things.

Befriend me, Night, best patroness of grief;

Over the pole thy thickest mantle throw,

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And work my flatter'd fancy to belief,

That heav'n and earth are colour'd with my woe;

My sorrows are too dark for day to know:

The leaves should all be black whereon I write,

And letters, where my tears have wash'd, a wannish

See, see the chariot, and those rushing wheels,
That whirl'd the Prophet up at Chebar flood;

white,

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My spirit some transporting Cherub feels,

To bear me where the tow'rs of Salem stood,
Once glorious tow'rs, now sunk in guiltless blood;
There doth my soul in holy vision sit,

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In pensive trance, and anguish, and ecstatic fit.
Mine eye had found that sad sepulchral rock
That was the casket of Heav'n's richest store,

And here though grief my feeble hands up-lock,
Yet on the soften'd quarry would I score
My plaining verse as lively ás before;

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For sure so well instructed are my tears,
That they would fitly fall in order'd characters.

Or should I thence hurried on viewless wing
Take up a weeping on the mountains wild,
The gentle neighbourhood of grove and spring
Would soon unbosom all their echoes mild;
And I (for grief is easily beguil'd)

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Might think th' infection of my sorrows loud Had got a race of mourners on some pregnant cloud. This subject the author finding to be above the years he had, when he wrote it, and nothing satisfied with what was begun, left it unfinished.

UPON THE CIRCUMCISION.

YE flaming pow'rs, and winged warriors bright,
That erst with music, and triumphant song,
First heard by happy watchful shepherds' ear,
So sweetly sung your joy the clouds along.
Through the soft silence of the list'ning night;
Now mourn; and, if sad share with us to bear
Your fiery essence can distil no tear,

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Burn in your sighs, and borrow

Seas wept from our deep sorrow:

He, who with all heav'n's heraldry whilere

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Enter'd the world, now bleeds to give us ease;
Alas, how soon our sin

Sore doth begin

His infancy to seize!

O more exceeding love, or law more just?

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Just law indeed, but more exceeding love!

For we, by rightful doom remediless,

Were lost in death, till he, that dwelt above

High-thron'd in secret bliss, for us frail dust
Emptied his glory, ev'n to nakedness;

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And that great covenant which we still transgress

Entirely satisfied;

And the full wrath beside

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O FAIREST flow'r, no sooner blown but blasted,
Soft silken primrose fading timelessly,
Summer's chief honour, if thou hadst out-lasted
Bleak winter's force that made thy blossom dry;
For he, being amorous on that lovely dye

That did thy cheek envermeil, thought to kiss,

A But kill'd, alas! and then bewail'd his fatal bliss.

For since grim Aquilo, his charioteer,

By boist'rous rape th' Athenian damsel got,
He thought it touch'd his deity full near,
If likewise he some fair one wedded not,
Thereby to wipe away th' infamous blot
Of long-uncoupled bed and childless eld,

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Which, 'mongst the wanton gods, a foul reproach was held.
So, mounting up in icy-pearled car,

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Through middle empire of the freezing air

He wander'd long, till thee he spied from far;

There ended was his quest, there ceas'd his care:
Down he descended from his snow-soft chair,
But, all unwares, with his cold-kind embrace
Unhous'd thy virgin soul from her fair biding-place.

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Yet art thou not inglorious in thy fate;

For so Apollo, with unweeting hand,
Whilom did slay his dearly-loved mate,

Young Hyacinth, born on Eurotas' strand,

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Young Hyacinth, the pride of Spartan land;

But then transform'd him to a purple flower:

Alack, that so to change thee Winter had no power!

Yet can I not persuade me thou art dead,

Or that thy corse corrupts in earth's dark womb,

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Or that thy beauties lie in wormy bed,
Hid from the world in a low-delved tomb;
Could Heav'n for pity thee so strictly doom?

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Oh no! for something in thy face did shine
Above mortality, that show'd thou wast divine.
Resolve me then, oh soul most surely blest!
(If so it be that thou these plaints dost hear)
Tell me, bright spirit, where'er thou hoverest,
Whether above that high first-moving sphere,
Or in th' Elysian fields (if such there were);
Oh say me true, if thou wert mortal wight,
And why from us so quickly thou didst take thy flight?

Wert thou some star which from the ruin'd roof
Of shak'd Olympus by mischance didst fall;
Which careful Jove in nature's true behoof
Took up, and in fit place did reinstall?
Or did of late Earth's sons besiege the wall

Of sheeny heav'n, and thou, some goddess fled,
Amongst us here below to hide thy nectar'd head?

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Or wert thou that just maid, who once before
Forsook the hated earth, O tell me sooth,

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And cam'st again to visit us once more?

Or wert thou that sweet-smiling youth?

Or that crown'd matron sage, white-robed Truth?
Or any other of that heav'nly brood

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Let down in cloudy throne to do the world some good?

Or wert thou of the golden-winged host,
Who, having clad thyself in human weed,
To earth from thy prefixed seat didst post,
And after short abode fly back with speed,
As if to show what creatures heav'n doth breed;
Thereby to set the hearts of men on fire

To scorn the sordid world, and unto heav'n aspire?
But oh! why didst thou not stay here below
To bless us with thy heav'n-lov'd innocence,
To slake his wrath whom sin hath made our foe
To turn swift-rushing black perdition hence,
Or drive away the slaughtering pestilence,

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To stand 'twixt us and our deserved smart? But thou canst best perform that office where thou art. 70 Then thou, the mother of so sweet a child, Her false imagin'd loss cease to lament, And wisely learn to curb thy sorrows wild; Think what a present thou to God hast sent, And render him with patience what he lent; This if thou do, he will an offspring give, That till the world's last end shall make thy name to live.

ON TIME.

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 loss,

So little is thy gain!

For when as each thing bad thou hast entomb'd,
And last of all thy greedy self consum'd,
Then long Eternity shall greet our bliss

With an individual kiss;

And Joy shall overtake us as a flood,

When every thing that is sincerely good

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Eternety

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And perfectly divine,

With Truth, and Peace, and Love, shall ever shine

About the supreme throne

Of Him, t' whose happy-making sight alone

When once our heav'nly-guided soul shall clime,
Then, all this earthy grossness quit,

Attir'd with stars, we shall for ever sit,
Triumphing over Death, and Chance, and thee,
O Time!

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AT A SOLEMN MUSIC.

BLEST pair of Sirens, pledges of heav'n's joy,
Sphere-born, harmonious sisters, Voice and Verse,
Wed your divine sounds, and mix'd pow'r employ

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