Page:The Complete Poetical Works of John Milton.djvu/51

 ON THE MORNING OF CHRIST'S NATIVITY

��XII

Such music (as 't is said) Before was never made, But when of old the Sons of Morning

sung,

While the Creator great 120

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.

XIII

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; 130

And with your ninefold harmony Make up full consort to the angelic sym- phony.

XIV

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 from earthly

mould;

And Hell itself will pass away, And leave her dolorous mansions to the peering day. MO

XV

Yea, Truth and Justice then Will down return to men, The enamelled arras of the rainbow

wearing;

And Mercy set 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 pal- ace-hall.

XVI

��But wisest Fate says No, This must not yet be so;

��150

��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 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 160

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.

XVIII

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, 171 Swindges 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 pro- phetic cell. 180

XX

The lonely mountains o'er, And the resounding shore, A voice of weeping heard and loud la- ment;

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.

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