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��" Much ostentation vain of fleshly arm And fragile arms, much instrument of war, Long in preparing, soon to nothing brought, Before mine eyes thou hast set, and in my

ear 390

Vented much policy, and projects deep Of enemies, of aids, battles, and leagues, Plausible to the world, to me worth naught. Means I must use, thou say'st; prediction

else

Will unpredict, and fail me of the throne ! My time, I told thee (and that time for

thee

Were better farthest off), is not yet come. When that comes, think not thou to find

me slack

On my part aught endeavouring, or to need Thy politic maxims, or that cumbersome Luggage of war there shewn me argu- ment 401 Of human weakness rather than of strength. My brethren, as thou call'st them, those

Ten Tribes,

I must deliver, if I mean to reign David's true heir, and his full sceptre sway To just extent over all Israel's sons ! But whence to thee this zeal ? Where was

it then

For Israel, or for David, or his throne, When thou stood'st up his tempter to the

pride Of numbering Israel which cost the

lives 410

Of threescore and ten thousand Israelites By three days' pestilence ? Such was thy

zeal

To Israel then, the same that now to me. As for those captive tribes, themselves were

they Who wrought their own captivity, fell off

��From God to worship calves, the deities Of Egypt, Baal next and Ashtaroth, And all the idolatries of heathen round, Besides their other worse than heathenish

crimes;

Nor in the land of their captivity 420

Humbled themselves, or penitent besought The God of their forefathers, but so died Impenitent, and left a race behind Like to themselves, distinguishable scarce From Gentiles, but by circumcision vain, And God with idols in their worship joined. Should I of these the liberty regard, Who, freed, as to their ancient patrimony, Uuhumbled, unrepentant, unreformed, Headlong would follow, and to their gods

perhaps 430

Of Bethel and of Dan? No; let them

serve

Their enemies who serve idols with God. Yet He at length, time to himself best

known, Remembering Abraham, by some wondrous

call

May bring them back, repentant and sincere, And at their passing cleave the Assyrian

flood, While to their native land with joy they

haste,

As the Red Sea and Jordan once he cleft, When to the Promised Land their fathers

passed. To his due time and providence I leave

them." 440

So spake Israel's true King, and to the

Fiend Made answer meet, that made void all his

wiles.

So fares it when with truth falsehood con- tends.

��THE FOURTH BOOK

PERPLEXED and troubled at his bad success The Tempter stood, nor had what to reply, Discovered in his fraud, thrown from his

hope

So oft, and the persuasive rhetoric That sleeked his tongue, and won so much

on Eve,

So little here, nay lost. But Eve was Eve; This far his over-match, who, self-deceived And rash, beforehand had no better weighed

��The strength he was to cope with, or his

own. But as a man who had been matchless

held 10

In cunning, over-reached where least he

thought,

To salve his credit, and for very spite, Still will be tempting him who foils him

still, And never cease, though to his shame the

more; Or as a swarm of flies in vintage-time,

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