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.

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IX.

When such music sweet

Their hearts and ears did greet
As never was by mortal finger strook,

Divinely-warbled voice

Answering the stringed noise, As all their souls in blissful rapture took : The air, such pleasure loth to lose, With thousand echoes still prolongs each heavenly close. 100

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.

I1O

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.

XII.

I 20

Such music (as 'tis 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.

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.

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XIV.

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.

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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 ;

150 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 out brake :
The aged earth, aghast

160
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 usurpéd sway,
And, wroth to see his kingdom fail,
Swings the scaly horror of his folded tail.

XIX.

The oracles are dumb;
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.

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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.

XXI.

190

In consecrated earth,

And on the holy hearth,
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 forgoes his wonted seat.

XXII.

Peor and Baälim

Forsake their temples dim,
With that twice-battered god of Palestine ;
And moonèd Ashtaroth,

200
Heaven's queen and mother both,
Now sits not girt with tapers' holy shine :
The Lybic Hammon shrinks his horn;
In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz mourn.

XXIII.

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,
In dismal dance about the furnace blue;
The brutish gods of Nile as fast,
Isis, and Orus, and the dog Anubis, haste.

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XXIV.

Nor is Osiris seen

In Memphian grove or green,
Trampling the unshowered grass with lowings loud;

Nor can he be at rest

Within his sacred chest;
Nought but profoundest hell can be his shroud ;
In vain, with timbrelled anthems dark,
The sable-stolèd sorcerers bear his worshipped ark.

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XXV.

He feels from Juda's land

The dreaded Infant's hand;
The rays of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyn;

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 damned crew.

XXVI.

So, when the sun in bed,

Curtained with cloudy red,
Pillows his chin upon an orient wave,

The flocking shadows pale

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