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Had doffed her gaudy trim,

With her great Master so to sympathize: It was no season then for her

To wanton with the sun, her lusty para

mour.

Only with speeches fair

She wooes the gentle air,

For all the morning light,

Or Lucifer had often warned them thence;

But in their glimmering orbs did glow, Until their Lord himself bespake, and bid them go.

And, though the shady gloom

To hide her guilty front with innocent Had given day her room,

snow;

And on her naked shame,
Pollute with sinful blame,

The sun himself withheld his wonted speed,

And hid his head for shame,

The saintly veil of maiden-white to As his inferior flame

throw;

Confounded, that her Maker's eyes
Should look so near upon her foul deform-

ities.

But he, her fears to cease,
Sent down the meek-eyed Peace:
She, crowned with olive green, came
softly sliding

Down through the turning sphere,
His ready harbinger,

With turtle wing the amorous clouds
dividing;

And, waving wide her myrtle wand,
She strikes a universal peace through sea
and land.

No war or battle's sound

Was heard the world around:

The new-enlightened world no more
should need;

He saw a greater sun appear
Than his bright throne, or burning axle-
tree, could bear.

The shepherds on the lawn,
Or ere 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 be-
low;

Perhaps their loves, or else their sheep, Was all that did their silly thoughts so busy keep.

When such music sweet

Their hearts and ears did greet,

The idle spear and shield were high up- Divinely warbled voice

As never was by mortal fingers strook,

hung;

The hooked chariot stood
Unstained with hostile blood;

The trumpet spake not to the arméd
throng;

And kings sat still with awful eye,
As if they surely knew their sovereign
lord was by.

But peaceful was the night,
Wherein the Prince of Light

Answering the stringéd noise,

As all their souls in blissful rapture took :

The air, such pleasure loath to lose,
With thousand echoes still prolongs each
heavenly close.

Nature, that heard such sound,
Beneath the hollow round

Of Cynthia's seat, the airy region
thrilling,

His reign of peace upon the earth began: Now was almost won,
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.

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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.

At last surrounds their sight

A globe of circular light,

That with long beams the shame-faced night arrayed; The helmed cherubim,

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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 aud 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 Palestine;

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.

In dismal dance about the furnace blue: How soon hath Time, the subtle thief

The brutish gods of Nile as fast,

Isis, and Orus, and the dog Anubis, haste.

Nor is Osiris seen

In Memphian grove or green,

of youth,

Stolen on his wing my three-and-twen

tieth year!

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

Trampling the unshowered grass with Perhaps my semblance might deceive the

lowings loud;

Nor can he be at rest
Within his sacred chest,

Naught but profoundest hell can be his

shroud;

In vain with timbrelled anthems dark The sable-stoled sorcerers bear his worshipped 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

truth,

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

That some more timely-happy spirits endu'th.

Yet, be it less or more, or soon or slow,

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.

SIR ROGER L'ESTRANGE.

39

My true account, lest he returning | Christ leads me through no darker rooms chide;

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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.

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Contentment cannot smart; stoics we | Whilst loyal thoughts do still repair

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

EDMUND WALLER.

[1605-1687.]

OLD AGE AND DEATH.

THE seas are quiet when the winds give o'er;

So calm are we when passions are no

more.

For then we know how vain it was to boast

Of fleeting things, too certain to be lost.

Clouds of affection from our younger eyes Conceal that emptiness which age descries.

The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed,

Lets in new light through chinks that time has made.

Stronger by weakness, wiser men become, As they draw near to their eternal home. Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view,

That stand upon the threshold of the

new..

ABRAHAM COWLEY.

[1618-1667.]

OF MYSELF.

THIS only grant me, that my means may lie

Too low for envy, for contempt too high. Some honor I would have,

Not from great deeds, but good alone; The unknown are better than ill known: Rumor can ope the grave. Acquaintance I would have, but when't depends

Not on the number, but the choice, of friends.

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