The Hundred Best English Poems Part 13

IX.

When such music sweet Their hearts and ears did greet, As never was by mortal finger strook; Divinely-warbled voice Answering the stringed noise, As all their souls in blissful rapture took.

The air, such pleasure loth to lose, With thousand echoes still prolongs each heavenly close.

X.

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.

XI.

At last surrounds their sight A globe of circular light, That with long beams the shame-faced Night arrayed.

The helmed 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.

XII.

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.

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 base of heaven's deep organ blow; And with your ninefold harmony Make up full consort to the angelic symphony.

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 h.e.l.l itself will pa.s.s away, And leave her dolorous mansions to the peering day.

XV.

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.

XVI.

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

XVII.

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.

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, Swinges the scaly horror of his folded tail.

XIX.

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.

XX.

The lonely mountains o'er, And the resounding sh.o.r.e, 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.

XXI.

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.

XXII.

Peor and Baalim Forsake their temples dim, With that twice battered G.o.d of Palestine; And mooned Ashtaroth, Heaven's queen and mother both, Now sits not girt with tapers' holy s.h.i.+ne; The Lybic Hammon shrinks his horn; In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz mourn.

XXIII.

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 G.o.ds of Nile as fast, Isis, and Orus, and the dog Anubis haste.

XXIV.

Nor is Osiris seen In Memphian grove or green, Trampling the unshowered gra.s.s with lowings loud; Nor can he be at rest Within his sacred chest, Nought but profoundest h.e.l.l can be his shroud; In vain, with timbrelled anthems dark, The sable-stoled sorcerers bear his wors.h.i.+pped ark.

XXV.

He feels, from Juda's land, The dreaded Infant's hand, The rays of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyn; Nor all the G.o.ds beside Longer dare abide, Nor Typhon huge ending in snaky twine.

Our Babe, to shew his G.o.dhead true, Can in his swaddling-bands control the d.a.m.ned crew.

XXVI.

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 fayes Fly after the Night steeds, leaving their moon-loved maze.

XXVII.

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.

50. _L'Allegro._

Hence, loathed Melancholy!

Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born, In Stygian cave forlorn, 'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy.

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 G.o.ddess 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 sweet-briar, or the vine, Or the twisted eglantine; While the c.o.c.k, 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 h.o.a.r hill, Through the high wood echoing shrill.

Sometime walking, not unseen, By hedgerow elms, on hillocks green, Right against the eastern gate, Where the great Sun begins his state, Robed in flames and amber light, The clouds in thousand liveries dight; While the ploughman, near at hand, Whistles o'er the furrowed land, And the milkmaid singeth blithe, And the mower whets his scythe, And every shepherd tells his tale, Under the hawthorn in the dale.

Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures, Whilst the landscape round it measures; Russet lawns, and fallows gray, Where the nibbling flocks do stray, Mountains on whose barren breast The labouring clouds do often rest, Meadows trim with daisies pied, Shallow brooks, and rivers wide, Towers and battlements it sees, Bosomed high in tufted trees, Where perhaps some Beauty lies, The Cynosure of neighbouring eyes.

Hard by a cottage-chimney smokes From betwixt two aged oaks, Where Corydon and Thyrsis, met, Are at their savoury dinner set Of herbs and other country messes, Which the neat-handed Phillis dresses; And then in haste her bower she leaves, With Thestylis to bind the sheaves; Or, if the earlier season lead, To the tanned hayc.o.c.k in the mead.

Sometimes, with secure delight, The upland hamlets will invite, When the merry bells ring round, And the jocund rebecks sound, To many a youth and many a maid, Dancing in the chequered shade, And young and old come forth to play On a suns.h.i.+ne holiday, Till the live-long daylight fail; Then to the spicy nut-brown ale, With stories told of many a feat, How faery Mab the junkets eat; She was pinched and pulled, she said; And he, by Friar's lantern led, Tells how the drudging goblin sweat, To earn his cream-bowl duly set, When in one night, ere glimpse of morn, His shadowy flail hath threshed the corn That ten day-labourers could not end; Then lies him down, the lubber-fiend, And, stretched out all the chimney's length, Basks at the fire his hairy strength, And crop-full out of doors he flings, Ere the first c.o.c.k his matin rings.

Thus done the tales, to bed they creep, By whispering winds soon lulled asleep.

Towered cities please us then, And the busy hum of men, Where throngs of knights and barons bold, In weeds of peace, high triumphs hold, With store of ladies, whose bright eyes Rain influence, and judge the prize Of wit or arms, while both contend To win her grace, whom all commend.

There let Hymen oft appear In saffron robe, with taper clear, And pomp, and feast, and revelry, With mask and antique pageantry; Such sights as youthful poets dream, On summer-eves by haunted stream.

Then to the well-trod stage anon, If Jonson's learned sock be on, Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child, Warble his native wood-notes wild.

And ever, against eating cares, Lap me in soft Lydian airs, Married to immortal verse, Such as the meeting soul may pierce, In notes with many a winding bout Of linked sweetness long drawn out, With wanton heed and giddy cunning The melting voice through mazes running Untwisting all the chains that tie The hidden soul of harmony; That Orpheus' self may heave his head, From golden slumber on a bed Of heaped Elysian flowers, and hear Such strains as would have won the ear Of Pluto, to have quite set free His half-regained Eurydice.