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

Their hearts and ears did greet,

As never was by mortal finger strook; Divinely-warbled voice

Answering their 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.

Nature that heard such sound,

Beneath the hollow round

Of Cynthia's seat, the aery 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.

At last surrounds their sight

A globe of circular light,

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

The 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 '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.

Ring out, ye crystal spheres,

Once bless our humble 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 nine-fold harmony,

Make up full concert to the angelic symphony.

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 with 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 lies yet in smiling infancy, That on the bitter cross

Must redeem our loss;

So both Himself and us to glorify:

Yet first to those enchained 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, under ground

In straiter limits bound,

Not half so far casts his usurpéd sway; And wroth to see his kingdom fail,

Swindges 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 shades of tangled thickets mourn

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 foregoes his wonted seat.

Peor and Baálim

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 shrine;

The Lybic 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,

In dismal dance about the furnace blue; The brutish gods of Nile as fast,

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

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-stoled sorcerers bear his worshipped ark.

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 damnéd crew.

So when the Sun in bed

Curtained with cloudy red,

Pillows his chin upon an orient wave,

The flocking shadows pale

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.

SONNET ON HIS OWN BLINDNESS.

When I consider how my light is spent

Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that our talent which is death to hide,

Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest He, returning, chide;
Doth God exact day-labour, light denied ?"

66

I fondly ask; but Patience, to prevent

That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need
Either man's work, or his own gifts; who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve Him best; his state
Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed,
And post o'er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait!"

MORNING HYMN IN PARADISE.

These are thy glorious works, Parent of good,
Almighty! thine this universal frame,

Thus wondrous fair; Thyself how wondrous then,
Unspeakable! who sitt'st above these heavens
To us invisible, or dimly seen

In these thy lowest works; yet these declare
Thy goodness beyond thought, and power divine.
Speak ye who best can tell, ye sons of light,
Angels! for ye behold Him, and with songs
And choral symphonies, day without night,
Circle his throne rejoicing; ye in heaven,
On earth join all ye creatures, to extol

Him first, Him last, Him midst, and without end!
Fairest of stars, last in the train of night,

If better thou belong not to the dawn,

Sure pledge of day, that crown'st the smiling morn
With thy bright circlet, praise Him in thy sphere
While day arises, that sweet hour of prime.
Thou sun! of this great world both eye and soul,
Acknowledge Him thy greater; sound his praise,
In thy eternal course, both when thou climb'st,

And when high noon hast gained, and when thou fall'st.
Moon! that now meet'st the orient sun, now fly'st,
With the fixed stars, fixed in their orb that flies;