The Works of Alexander Pope Part 61

The mossy fountains, and the sylvan shades, The dreams of Pindus[3] and th' Aonian maids, Delight no more[4]--O Thou my voice inspire Who touched Isaiah's hallowed lips with fire![5]

Rapt[6] into future times, the bard begun:[7]

A virgin shall conceive, a virgin bear a son![8]

From Jesse's[9] root behold a branch arise, Whose sacred flow'r with fragrance fills the skies: 10 Th' ethereal Spirit o'er its leaves shall move, And on its top descends the mystic dove.[10]

Ye heav'ns! from high the dewy nectar pour,[11]

And in soft silence shed the kindly show'r![12]

The sick[13] and weak the healing plant shall aid, 15 From storms a shelter, and from heat a shade.

All crimes shall cease, and ancient fraud[14] shall fail; Returning Justice[15] lift aloft her scale; Peace o'er the world her olive wand extend, And white-robed Innocence from heaven descend. 20 Swift fly the years,[16] and rise th' expected morn!

Oh spring to light, auspicious babe, be born![17]

See Nature hastes her earliest wreaths to bring,[18]

With all the incense of the breathing spring:[19]

See lofty Lebanon[20] his head advance; 25 See nodding forests on the mountains dance:[21]

See spicy clouds from lowly Saron rise, And Carmel's flow'ry top perfumes the skies!

Hark! a glad voice the lonely desert cheers; Prepare the way![22] a G.o.d, a G.o.d appears: 30 A G.o.d, a G.o.d![23] the vocal hills reply, The rocks proclaim th' approaching deity.

Lo, earth receives him from the bending skies!

Sink down, ye mountains, and, ye valleys, rise; With heads declined, ye cedars, homage pay;[24] 35 Be smooth, ye rocks;[25] ye rapid floods, give way!

The Saviour comes! by ancient bards foretold!

Hear him, ye deaf, and all ye blind, behold![26]

He from thick films shall purge the visual ray,[27]

And on the sightless eye-ball pour the day: 40 'Tis he th' obstructed paths of sound shall clear,[28]

And bid new music charm th' unfolding ear: The dumb shall sing, the lame his crutch forego, And leap exulting like the bounding roe.[29]

No sigh, no murmur the wide world shall hear,[30] 45 From ev'ry face he wipes off ev'ry tear,[31]

In adamantine[32] chains shall Death be bound, And h.e.l.l's grim tyrant feel th' eternal wound.

As the good shepherd tends his fleecy care, Seeks freshest pasture and the purest air, 50 Explores the lost, the wand'ring sheep directs, By day o'ersees them, and by night protects, The tender lambs he[33] raises in his arms,[34]

Feeds from his hand, and in his bosom warms;[35]

Thus shall mankind his guardian care engage, 55 The promised Father[36] of the future age.

No more shall nation[37] against nation rise, Nor ardent warriors meet with hateful eyes, Nor fields with gleaming steel be covered o'er,[38]

The brazen trumpets kindle rage no more;[39] 60 But useless lances into scythes shall bend, And the broad faulchion in a plow-share end.

Then palaces shall rise; the joyful son[40]

Shall finish what his short-lived sire begun;[41]

Their vines a shadow to their race shall yield,[42] 65 And the same hand that sowed, shall reap the field.

The swain in barren deserts[43] with surprise Sees lilies spring, and sudden verdure rise;[44]

And starts, amidst the thirsty wilds, to hear New fells of water murm'ring in his ear.[45] 70 On rifted rocks, the dragon's late abodes, The green reed trembles, and the bulrush nods.

Waste sandy valleys,[46] once perplexed with thorn, The spiry fir and shapely box adorn; To leafless shrubs the flow'ring palms succeed, 75 And od'rous myrtle to the noisome weed.

The lambs with wolves shall graze the verdant mead,[47]

And boys in flow'ry bands the tiger lead;[48]

The steer and lion at one crib shall meet,[49]

And harmless serpents lick the pilgrim's feet.[50] 80 The smiling infant in his hand shall take The crested basilisk and speckled snake, Pleased, the green l.u.s.tre of the scales survey, And with their forky tongue shall innocently play.[51]

Rise, crowned with light, imperial Salem,[52] rise![53] 85 Exalt thy tow'ry head,[54] and lift thy eyes![55]

See, a long race[56] thy s.p.a.cious courts adorn; See future sons, and daughters yet unborn, In crowding ranks on ev'ry side arise, Demanding life, impatient for the skies! 90 See barb'rous nations[57] at thy gates attend, Walk in thy light, and in thy temple bend; See thy bright altars thronged with prostrate kings, And heaped with products of Sabaean[58] springs![59]

For thee Idume's spicy forests blow, 95 And seeds of gold in Ophir's mountains glow.

See heav'n its sparkling portals wide display, And break upon thee in a flood of day.[60]

No more the rising sun[61] shall gild the morn, Nor ev'ning Cynthia[62] fill her silver horn; 100 But lost, dissolved in thy superior rays, One tide of glory,[63] one unclouded blaze O'erflow thy courts: the Light himself shall s.h.i.+ne Revealed, and G.o.d's eternal day be thine![64]

The seas shall waste, the skies in smoke decay,[65] 105 Rocks fall to dust, and mountains melt away; But fixed his word, his saving power remains: Thy realm for ever lasts, thy own MESSIAH reigns!

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Solyma is the latter part of the Greek name for Jerusalem, [Greek: Hierosolyma].]

[Footnote 2: Dryden's Virg. Ecl. iv. 1.

Sicilian muse, begin a loftier strain--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 3: The poets of antiquity were thought to receive inspired dreams by sleeping on the poetic mountains.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 4: The pause and words are evidently from Dryden, a greater harmonist, if I may say so, than Pope:

The lovely shrubs and trees that shade the plain, Delight not all.--BOWLES.]

[Footnote 5: Alluding to Isaiah vi. 6, 7. "Then flew one of the Seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar; and he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo! this hath touched thy lips." Milton had already made the same allusion to Isaiah, at the close of his Hymn on the Nativity:

And join thy voice unto the angel quire, From out his sacred altar touched with hallowed fire.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 6: Rapt, that is, carried forwards from the present scene of things into a distant period, from the Latin _rapio_.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 7: The poet wrongly uses "begun," instead of the past, began.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 8: Virg. Ecl. iv. 6:

Jam redit et Virge, redeunt Saturnia regna; Jam nova progenies coelo demitt.i.tur alto.-- Te duce, si qua manent sceleris vestigia nostri, Irrita perpetua solvent formidine terras.-- Pacatumque reget patriis virtutibus...o...b..m.

"_Now the Virgin returns, now the kingdom of Saturn returns, now a new progeny is sent down from high heaven. By means of thee, whatever reliques of our crimes remain, shall be wiped away, and free the world from perpetual fears. He shall govern the earth in peace, with the virtues of his father._"

Isaiah vii. 14. "_Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son._" Ch.

ix. ver. 6, 7. "_Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given,--the Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government, and of his peace, there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it and to establish it with judgment and with justice, for ever and ever._"--POPE.

By "the virgin" Virgil meant Astraea, or Justice, who is said by the poets to have been driven from earth by the wickedness of mankind.--PROFESSOR MARTYN.]

[Footnote 9: Isaiah xi. i.--POPE. "_And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots._"]

[Footnote 10: Pope lowers the comparison when he follows it out into details, and likens the endowments of the Messiah to leaves, and his head to the top of a tree on which the dove descends.]

[Footnote 11: Isaiah xlv. 8.--POPE. "_Drop down, ye heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness._"]

[Footnote 12: Dryden's Don Sebastian:

But shed from nature like a kindly show'r.--STEEVENS.]

[Footnote 13: Isaiah xxv. 4,--POPE. "_For thou hast been a strength to the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shadow from the heat._"]

[Footnote 14: Warburton says that Pope referred to the fraud of the serpent, but the allusion is more general, and the poet had probably in his mind the "priscae vestigia fraudis," which Wakefield quotes from Virg. Ecl. iv. 31, and which Dryden renders

Yet of old fraud some footsteps shall remain.]

[Footnote 15: Isaiah ix. 7.--POPE.

For Justice was fabled by the poets to quit the earth at the conclusion of the golden age.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 16: This animated apostrophe is grounded on that of Virg. Ecl.

iv. 46: