And, though the shady gloom

Had given day her room,

The sun himself withheld his wonted speed, And hid his head for shame,

As his inferior flame

The new-enlightened world no more should need

He saw a greater sun appear

.;

Than his bright throne, or burning axletree, 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 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 fingers strook,

Divinely warbled voice

Answering the stringèd 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,

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 helmèd cherubim,

And 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 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 symphony.

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,

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.

Aud 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 usurpèd 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 breathèd 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 moonèd 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,

In dismal dance about the furnace blue: