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,

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 usurped 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 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.

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 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.

Peor and Baalim

Forsake their temples dim,

With that twice-battered god of Palestine;
And mooned Ashtaroth,

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.

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.

The

He feels from Juda's land

The dreaded Infant's hand;

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.

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-teemed 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.

L'ALLEGRO

HENCE, loathed Melancholy,

Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born

In Stygian cave forlorn,

'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights un

holy !

Find out some uncouth cell

Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings

And the night-raven sings;

There under ebon shades, and low-browed rocks

As ragged as thy locks,

In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell.

But come, thou goddess fair and free,

In heaven yclept Euphrosyne,

And by men, heart-easing Mirth,
Whom lovely Venus at a birth
With two sister Graces more

To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore;
Or whether (as some sager sing)

The frolic wind that breathes the spring,

Zephyr, with Aurora playing,

As he met her once a-Maying

There on beds of violets blue

And fresh-blown roses washed in dew

Filled her with thee, a daughter fair,
So buxom, blithe, and debonair.

Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee Jest, and youthful jollity,

Quips, and cranks, and wanton wiles,

Nods, and becks, and wreathed smiles,
Such as hang on Hebe's cheek,

And love to live in dimple sleek;

Sport that wrinkled Care derides,

And Laughter holding both his sides :—
Come, and trip it as you go

On the light fantastic toe;

And in thy right hand lead with thee
The mountain-nymph, sweet Liberty ;
And if I give thee honour due,
Mirth, admit me of thy crew,

To live with her, and live with thee
In unreproved pleasures free;
To hear the lark begin his flight
And singing startle the dull night
From his watch-tower in the skies,
Till the dappled dawn doth rise;
Then to come, in spite of sorrow,
And at my window bid good-morrow
Through the sweetbriar, or the vine,
Or the twisted eglantine:

While the cock with lively din
Scatters the rear of darkness thin,
And to the stack, or the barn-door
Stoutly struts his dames before:
Oft listening how the hounds and horn
Cheerly rouse the slumbering morn,
From the side of some hoar hill,

Through the high wood echoing shrill :