The shepherds on the lawn

Or ere the point of dawn

Sate simply chatting in a rustic row;

Full little thought they than

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 finger strook-
Divinely-warbled voice

Answering the stringéd noise,

As all their souls in blissful rapture took;

The air, such pleasure loth 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 shamefaced night array'd; The helméd Cherubim

And sworded Seraphim

Are seen in glittering ranks with wings display'd,
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 consort to the angelic symphony.

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 earthy 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,

Orb'd 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 ychain'd 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 sessión,

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 usurpéd 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 archéd roof in words deceiving;

Apollo from his shrine

Can no more divine,

With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving:
No nightly trance or breathéd 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 Lemurés moan with midnight plaint;

In urns and altars round

A drear and dying round

Affrights the Flamens at their service quaint;
And the chill marble seems to sweat,

While each peculiar Power foregoes his wonted seat.

Peor and Baalim

Forsake their temples dim,

With that twice-batter'd god of Palestine;
And moonéd Ashtaroth

Heaven's queen and mother both,

Now sits not girt with tapers' holy shine;
The Lybie 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 unshower'd 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 timbrell'd anthems dark

The sable-stoléd sorcerers bear his worshipt ark.

He feels from Juda's land

The dreaded Infant's hand;

The 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 damnéd crew.

So, when the sun in bed

Curtain'd with cloudy red

Pillows his chin upon an orient wave,

The flocking shadows pale

Troop to the infernal jail,

Each fetter'd ghost slips to his several grave;

And the yellow-skirted fays

Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-loved

maze.