Yet first, to those ychain'd in sleep, The wakeful trump of doom must thunder through the deep; 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. 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 through the archéd roof in words deceiving: Can no more divine, With hollow shriek the sleep of Delphos leaving: No nightly trance or breathéd 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; Edged with poplar pale The parting Genius is with sighing sent; The nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn. In consecrated earth And on the holy hearth The Lars and Lemurés 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-batter'd god of Palestine; And moonéd Ashtaroth, Heaven's queen and mother both, Now sits not girt with tapers' holy shrine; 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; 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. Trampling the unshower'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-stoléd sorcerers bear his worshipt ark. He feels from Juda's land The dreaded infant's hand; The rays of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyn; Longer dare abide, Nor Typhon huge ending in snaky twine: Our Babe, to show his Godhead true, Can in his swaddling bands control the damnéd 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-teeméd star Hath fixed her polish'd car, Her sleeping Lord with hand-maid lamp attending; Bright harness'd angels sit in order serviceable. Milton. LESSON XCV. THE BROOK. I come from haunts of coot and hern, And sparkle out among the fern, By thirty mills I hurry down, I chatter over stony ways, I chatter, chatter, as I flow I wind about and in and out, With here a blossom sailing, And here and there a foamy flake With many a silvery water-break I steal by lawns and grassy plots, I move the sweet forget-me-nots I murmur under moon and stars In brambly wildernesses, LESSON XCVI.-RAIN IN SUMMER. How beautiful is the rain! After the dust and heat, In the broad and fiery street, In the narrow lane, How beautiful is the rain! How it clatters along the roofs, Like the tramp of hoofs ! How it gushes and struggles out From the throat of the overflowing spout! Across the window pane It pours and pours; And swift and wide, With a muddy tide, Like a river down the gutter roars The rain, the welcome rain! The sick man from his chamber looks At the twisted brooks; He can feel the cool Breath of each little pool; His fevered brain Grows calm again, And he breathes a blessing on the rain. |