By wanton heifer shall be worn 2 A garland, or a gilded horn.

The altar-stall'd ox, fat Osyris, now
With his fair sister cow,

3 Shall kick the clouds no more; but lean and

tame,

Cho. See his horn'd face, and die for shame,

And Mithra now shall be no name.

1 No longer shall th' immodest lust Of adulterous godless dust

2 Fly in the face of Heaven; as if it were The poor world's fault that he is fair.

3 Nor with perverse loves and religious rapes

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Revenge thy bounties in their beauteous shapes; And punish best things worst, because they stood Guilty of being much for them too good. 1 Proud sons of death that durst compel Heaven itself to find them hell;

2 And by strange wit of madness wrest

From this world's East the other's West.
3 All-idolizing worms, that thus could crowd
And urge their sun into thy cloud;
Forcing his sometimes eclips'd face to be
A long deliquium to the light of thee.
Cho. Alas! with how much heavier shade
The shamefaced lamp hung down his head,
For that one eclipse he made,
Than all those he suffered!

1 For this he looked so big, and ev'ry morn
With a red face confess'd this scorn;
Or, hiding his vex'd cheeks in a hired mist,
Kept them from being so unkindly kist.
2 It was for this the day did rise

So oft with blubber'd eyes,

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For this the evening wept; and we ne'er knew, 127
But called it dew.

3 This daily wrong

Silenced the morning sons, and damp'd their song.
Cho. Nor was 't our deafness, but our sins, that thus
Long made th' harmonious orbs all mute to us.
2 Time has a day in store
When this so proudly poor

And self-oppressed spark, that has so long
By the love-sick world been made

Not so much their sun as shade,

Weary of this glorious wrong,

From them and from himself shall flee

For shelter to the shadow of thy tree; Cho. Proud to have gain'd this precious loss

And changed his false crown for thy cross.

2 That dark day's clear doom shall define

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Whose is the master fire, which sun would shine;
That sable judgment-seat shall by new laws
Decide and settle the great cause

Of controverted light,

Cho. And nature's wrongs rejoice to do thee right.
3 That forfeiture of noon to night shall pay

All the idolatrous thefts done by this night of day ;
And the great penitent press his own pale lips 151
With an elaborate love-eclipse,

To which the low world's laws

Shall lend no cause,

Cho. Save those domestic which he borrows
From our sins and his own sorrows.

1 Three sad hours' sackcloth then shall show to us
His penance, as our fault, conspicuous.

2 And he more needfully and nobly prove

The nations' terror now than erst their love; 100

3 Their hated love's changed into wholesome 161

fears.

theirs.

Cho. The shutting of his eye shall open
2 As by a fair-eyed fallacy of day
Misled before they lost their way,
So shall they, by the seasonable fright
Of an unseasonable night,

Losing it once again, stumble on true light, 2 And as before his too-bright eye

Was their more blind idolatry,

So his officious blindness now shall be

Their black, but faithful perspective of thee.

3 His new prodigious night,

Their new and admirable light;

The supernatural dawn of thy pure day,

While wond'ring they

(The happy converts now of him

Whom they compell'd before to be their sin)
Shall henceforth see

To kiss him only as their rod

Whom they so long courted as God,

Cho. And their best use of him they worshipp'd be
To learn, of him at least, to worship thee.
2 It was their weakness woo'd his beauty;
But it shall be

Their wisdom now, as well as duty,

T' enjoy his blot; and as a large black letter
Use it to spell thy beauties better;

And make the night itself their torch to thee. 2 By the oblique ambush of this close night Couch'd in that conscious shade

The right-eyed Areopagite

Shall with a vig'rous guess invade

And catch thy quick reflex; and sharply see

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On this dark ground

To descant thee.

3 O price of the rich Spirit! with that fierce chase

Of this strong soul, shall he

Leap at thy lofty face,

And seize the swift flash, in rebound

From this obsequious cloud;

Once call'd a sun,

Till dearly thus undone;

Cho. Till thus triumphantly tamed (0 ye two
Twin-suns!) and taught now to negotiate you.
1 Thus shall that rev'rend child of light,
2 By being scholar first of that new night,
Come forth great master of the mystic day,
3 And teach obscure mankind a more close way,
By the frugal negative light

Of a most wise and well-abused night,

To read more legible thine original ray,
Cho. And make our darkness serve thy day;
Maintaining 'twixt thy world and ours
A commerce of contrary powers,
A mutual trade

"Twixt sun and shade,

By confederate black and white

Borrowing day and lending night.

1 Thus we, who when with all the noble powers That (at thy cost) are call'd, not vainly, ours; We vow to make brave way

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Upwards, and press on for the pure intelligential prey;

2 At least to play

The amorous spies,

And peep and proffer at thy sparkling throne;

3 Instead of bringing in the blissful prize And fast'ning on thine eyes, Forfeit our own

And nothing gain

But more ambitious loss, at least of brain; Cho. Now by abased lids shall learn to be Eagles, and shut our eyes that we may see.

THE CLOSE.

Therefore to thee and thine auspicious ray
(Dread sweet!) lo thus

At least by us,

The delegated eye of day

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Does first his sceptre, then himself in solemn tribute

pay.

Thus he undresses

His sacred unshorn tresses;

At thy adored feet, thus he lays down

1 His gorgeous tire

Of flame and fire,

2 His glitt'ring robe, 3 His sparkling crown,
3 His gold, 2 His myrrh, 3 His frankincense,
Cho. To which he now has no pretence.

For being show'd by this day's light, how far
He is from sun enough to make thy star,
His best ambition now, is but to be
Something a brighter shadow (sweet) of thee;
Or on Heaven's azure forehead high to stand
Thy golden index; with a duteous hand
Pointing us home to our own Sun
The world's and his Hyperion.

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