When at the world's last sessiòn,

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,

Swinges the scaly horror of his folded tail.

The oracles are dumb,

No voice or hideous hum

Runs thro' 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-ey'd 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 flow'r-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 forgoes his wonted seat.

Peor and Baälim

Forsake their temples dim,

With that twice-batter'd god of Palestine ;
And moonèd 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 unshow'r'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-stolèd sorcerers bear his worship'd ark.

He feels from Juda's land

The dreaded infant's hand,

The rays of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyn;

Not 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 damnèd 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 th' infernal jail,

Each fetter'd ghost slips to his several grave;

And the yellow-skirted Fayes

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; Heav'n's youngest teemèd star

Hath fix'd 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.

Winter

IN a drear-nighted December,
Too happy, happy Tree,
Thy branches ne'er remember

Their green felicity:

The north cannot undo them,

J. MILTON.

With a sleety whistle through them;
Nor frozen thawings glue them
From budding at the prime.

In a drear-nighted December,
Too happy, happy Brook,
Thy bubblings ne'er remember
Apollo's summer look ;

But with a sweet forgetting,
They stay their crystal fretting,
Never, never petting

About the frozen time.

Ah, would 'twere so with many
A gentle girl and boy!
But were there ever any
Writh'd not at passèd joy?
To know the change and feel it,
When there is none to heal it,
Nor numbèd sense to steal it,
Was never said in rhyme.

Christabel

J. KEATS.

'TIS the middle of night by the castle clock,
And the owls have awakened the crowing cock!

Tu-whit!- -Tu-whoo!

And hark, again! the crowing cock,

How drowsily it crew.

Sir Leoline, the Baron rich,

Hath a toothless mastiff bitch

From her kennel beneath the rock

Maketh answer to the clock,

Four for the quarters, and twelve for the hour;
Ever and aye, by shine and shower,
Sixteen short howls, not over loud :
Some say, she sees my lady's shroud.

Is the night chilly and dark?
The night is chilly, but not dark.
The thin gray cloud is spread on high,
It covers but not hides the sky.
The moon is behind, and at the full ;
And yet she looks both small and dull.
The night is chill, the cloud is gray :
'Tis a month before the month of May,
And the Spring comes slowly up this way.

The lovely lady, Christabel,

Whom her father loves so well,
What makes her in the wood so late,
A furlong from the castle gate?
She had dreams all yesternight

Of her own betrothed knight;

And she in the midnight wood will pray
For the weal of her lover that's far away.

She stole along, she nothing spoke,
The sighs she heaved were soft and low,
And naught was green upon the oak,
But moss and rarest mistletoe ;
She kneels beneath the huge oak tree,
And in silence prayeth she.

The lady sprang up suddenly,
The lovely lady, Christabel !
It moaned as near, as near can be,
But what it is, she cannot tell.—
On the other side it seems to be,
Of the huge, broad-breasted, old oak tree.

The night is chill; the forest bare ;
Is it the wind that moaneth bleak?

There is not wind enough in the air
To move away the ringlet curl
From the lovely lady's cheek—
There is not wind enough to twirl
The one red leaf, the last of its clan,
That dances as often as dance it can,
Hanging so light, and hanging so high,
On the topmost twig that looks up to the sky.
Hush, beating heart of Christabel !
Jesu, Maria, shield her well!

She folded her arms beneath her cloak,
And stole to the other side of the oak.
What sees she there?

There she sees a damsel bright,
Drest in a silken robe of white,

That shadowy in the moonlight shone:
The neck that made that white robe wan,
Her stately neck, and arms were bare :
Her blue-veined feet unsandaled were ;
And wildly glittered here and there
The gems entangled in her hair.
I guess, 'twas frightful there to see
A lady so richly clad as she-
Beautiful exceedingly!

Mary Mother, save me now!

(Said Christabel), And who art thou?

The lady strange made answer meet,
And her voice was faint and sweet :-
Have pity on my sore distress,

I scarce can speak for weariness.

Stretch forth thy hand, and have no fear,

Said Christabel, How camest thou here?

And the lady, whose voice was faint and sweet,

Did thus pursue her answer meet :

My sire is of a noble line,

And my name is Geraldine :

Five warriors seized me yestermorn,

Me, even me, a maid forlorn :

They choked my cries with force and fright,

And tied me on a palfrey white.