ON HIS BLINDNESS.

WHEN I consider how my light is spent Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,

And that one talent which is death to hide,

Lodg'd with me useless, though my soul more bent

To serve therewith my Maker, and present

My true account, lest he returning chide;

Doth God exact day labor, light deny'd,

I fondly ask? but patience to prevent That murmur soon replies, God doth not need

Either man's work or his own gifts; who best

Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best: his state

Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed, And post o'er land and ocean without rest;

They also serve who only stand and wait.

ON HIS DECEASED WIFE. METHOUGHT I saw my late espoused saint

Brought to me like Alcestis from the grave,

Whom Jove's great son to her glad husband gave,

Rescued from death by force though pale and faint.

Mine, as whom wash'd from spot of child-bed taint,

Purification in the old law did save, And such, as yet once more I trust to have

Full sight of her in Heav'n, without restraint,

Came vested all in white, pure as her mind:

Her face was veil'd, yet to my fancied sight

Love, sweetness, goodness, in her person shin'd

So clear, as in no face with more delight. But O, as to embrace me she inclin'd, I wak'd, she fled, and day brought back my night.

HYMN ON THE NATIVITY, IT was the winter wild,

While the heaven-born child

All meanly wrapt in the rude manger
lies;

Nature, in awe of him,
Had doffed her gaudy trim,

With her great Master so to sympa.. thize:

No war or battle's sound

Was heard the world around:

The stars, with deep amaze,
Stand fix'd in steadfast gaze,

Bending one way their precious influ

ence;

And will not take their flight,
For all the morning light,

Or Lucifer had often warn'd them
thence;

But in their glimmering orbs did glow, Until their Lord himself bespake, and bid them go.

And, though the shady gloom
Had given day her room,

The sun himself withheld his wonted
speed,

And hid his head for shame,

As his inferior flame

The new-enlighten'd world no more should need;

He saw a greater sun appear Than his bright throne, or burning axletree, could bear.

The shepherds on the lawn,

Or ere the point of dawn,

Sat simply chatting in a rustic row; Full little thought they then

That the mighty Pan

Was kindly come to live with them below;

up hung;

The hooked chariot stood

Unstain'd with hostile blood;

The trumpet spake not to the armed throng;

And kings sat still with awful eye, As if they surely knew their sov'reign lord was by.

But peaceful was the night,
Wherein the Prince of Light

His reign of peace upon the earth
began:

The winds, with wonder whist,
Smoothly the waters kiss'd,

Whispering new joys to the mild

ocean,

Who now hath quite forgot to rave, While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmed wave.

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 fingers strook, Divinely-warbled voice

Answering the stringed noise,

As all their souls in blissful rapture took :

The air, such pleasure loathe to lose, With thousand echoes still prolongs cach 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 shame-fac'd
night array'd;

The helmed cherubim,
And sworded seraphim,

Are seen in glittering ranks with wings
display'd,

Harping in loud and solemn choir, 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-balanc'd 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 concert 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 earthly
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,

Thron'd 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 doommust thunder
through the deep,

With such a horrid clang
As on Mount Sinai rang,

While the red fire and smould'ring
clouds out brake;

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.

And then at last our bliss,
Full and perfect is,

But now begins: for, from this happy
day,

The old dragon, underground,
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.

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,
Edg'd 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 Lemurs mourn 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 Baälim

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 Libyac 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 timbrell'd anthems dark The sable-stoled sorcerers bear his worshipp'd ark.

He feels from Judah's land

The dreaded infant's hand,

The rays of Bethlehem blind his dusky

eyne;

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 damned 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.

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 polish'd car,

Her sleeping Lord with handmaid
lamp attending;

And all about the courtly stable Bright-harness'd angels sit in order serviceable.

BEFORE THE STARRY THRESHOLD OF JOVE'S COURT. BEFORE the starry threshold of Jove's court,

My mansion is, where those immortal shapes

Hid them in some flowery cave, Tell me but where,

Sweet queen of parley, daughter of the sphere!

So may'st thou be translated to the skies,

And give resounding grace to all Heaven's harmonies.

THE SPIRIT'S EPILOGUE.
To the ocean now I fly,

And those happy climes that lie
Where Day never shuts his eye,
Up in the broad fields of the sky:
There I suck the liquid air,
All amidst the garden fair

Of Hesperus, and his daughters three,
That sing about the golden tree:
Along the crisped shades and bowers
Revels the spruce and jocund spring,
The Graces and the rosy-bosom'd hours,
Thither all their bounties bring;
That there eternal summer dwells,
And west-winds with musky wing
About the cedarn alleys fling
Nard and cassia's balmy smells.
Iris there with humid bow
Waters the odorous banks, that blow
Flowers of more mingled hue
Than her purfled scarf can show,
And drenches with Elysian dew
(List, mortals, if your ears be true)
Beds of hyacinths and roses,
Where young Adonis oft reposes,
Waxing well of his deep wound
In slumbers soft, and on the ground
Sadly sits th' Assyrian queen;
But far above in spangled sheen
Celestial Cupid, her fam'd son advanc'd
Holds her dear Psyche sweet entranc'd,
After her wand'ring labors long,
Till free consent the gods among
Make her his eternal bride,
And from her fair unspotted side
Two blissful twins are to be born,
Youth and Joy; so Jove hath sworn.

But now my task is smoothly done,
I can fly or I can run,
Quickly to the green earth's end,