The aged earth aghast

With terror of that blast

Shall from the surface to the centre shake,

When, at the worlds last session,

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 usurped sway;

And, wroth to see his kingdom fail,

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 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 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 foregoes his wonted seat.

Peor and Baalim

Forsake their temples dim,

With that twice battered god of Palestine;
And mooned Ashtaroth

Heaven's queen and mother both,

Now sits not girt with tapers' holy shine;
The Lybic 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 unshowered 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 timbrelled anthems dark

The sable stolèd sorcerers bear his worshipped 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,

Nor Typhon huge ending in snaky twine :

Our Babe, to show his Godhead true,

Can in his swaddling bands control the damnèd crew.

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 fays

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

But see, the Virgin blest

Hath laid her Babe to rest;

Time is, our tedious song should here have ending:
Heaven's youngest-teemèd star

Hath fixed her polish'd car,

Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending :

And all about the courtly stable

Bright-harnessed angels sit in order serviceable.

* 195 *

John Milton.

SONG

Soldier, rest! thy warfare o'er,

Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking;
Dream of battled fields no more,

Days of danger, nights of waking.

In our isle's enchanted hall,

Hands unseen thy couch are strewing,

Fairy strains of music fall,

Every sense in slumber dewing,

Soldier, rest! thy warfare o'er,
Dream of fighting fields no more:

Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking,
Morn of toil, nor night of waking.

No rude sound shall reach thine ear,

Armour's clang, or war-steed champing,

Trump nor pibroch summon here.

Mustering clan, or squadron tramping;
Yet the lark's shrill fife may come

At the day-break from the fallow,
And the bittern sound his drum,
Booming from the sedgy shallow.
Ruder sounds shall none be near
Guards nor warders challenge here,
Here's no war steed's neigh and champing,
Shouting clans, or squadron stamping.

Huntsman, rest! thy chase is done,

While our slumbrous spells assail ye, Dream not with the rising sun,

Bugles here shall sound reveillé.
Sleep! the deer is in his den,

Sleep! thy hounds are by thee lying;
Sleep! nor dream in yonder glen,
How thy gallant steed lay dying.
Huntsman, rest! thy chase is done,
Think not of the rising sun,
For at dawning to assail ye,
Here no bugles sound reveillé.

Walter Scott.

*

196*

A FAREWELL.

My fairest child, I have no song to give you;
No lark could pipe to skies so dull and grey;
Yet, ere we part, one lesson I can leave you
For every day.

Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever ; Do noble things, not dream them, all day long: And so make life, death, and that vast forever

One grand, sweet song.

Charles Kingsley.