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I THIS is the month, and this the happy morn, | |
| Wherein the Son of Heaven’s eternal King, | |
| Of weddèd maid and virgin mother born, | |
| Our great redemption from above did bring; | |
| For so the holy sages once did sing, | 5 |
| That he our daily forfeit should release, | |
| And with his Father work us a perpetual peace. | |
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II That glorious form, that light unsufferable, | |
| And that far-beaming blaze of majesty | |
| Wherewith he wont at Heaven’s high council-table | 10 |
| To sit the midst of Trinal Unity, | |
| He laid aside; and here with us to be, | |
| Forsook the courts of everlasting day, | |
| And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay. | |
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III Say, heavenly muse, shall not thy sacred vein | 15 |
| Afford a present to the Infant God? | |
| Hast thou no verse, no hymn, or solemn strain, | |
| To welcome him to this his new abode, | |
| Now while the Heaven, by the sun’s team untrod, | |
| Hath took no print of the approaching light, | 20 |
| And all the spangled host keep watch in squadrons bright? | |
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IV See how from far upon the eastern road | |
| The star-led wizards haste with odours sweet: | |
| Oh, run, prevent them with thy humble ode; | |
| And lay it lowly at his blessed feet; | 25 |
| Have thou the honour first thy Lord to greet, | |
| And join thy voice unto the angel quire, | |
| From out his secret altar touched with hallowed fire. | |
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THE HYMN
I It was the winter wild, | |
| While the Heaven-born child | 30 |
| All meanly wrapped in the rude manger lies; | |
| Nature in awe to him | |
| Had doffed her gaudy trim, | |
| With her great master so to sympathise: | |
| It was no season then for her | 35 |
| To wanton with the sun, her lusty paramour. | |
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II Only with speeches fair | |
| She woos the gentle air | |
| To hide her guilty front with innocent snow, | |
| And on her naked shame, | 40 |
| Pollute with sinful blame, | |
| The saintly veil of maiden white to throw, | |
| Confounded that her Maker’s eyes | |
| Should look so near upon her foul deformities. | |
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III But he, her fears to cease, | 45 |
| Sent down the meek-eyed Peace; | |
| She, crowned with olive-green, came softly sliding | |
| Down through the turning sphere, | |
| His ready harbinger, | |
| With turtle wing the amorous clouds dividing, | 50 |
| And waving wide her myrtle wand, | |
| She strikes an universal peace through sea and land. | |
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IV No war, or battle’s sound, | |
| Was heard the world around: | |
| The idle spear and shield were high up hung; | 55 |
| The hookèd chariot stood, | |
| Unstained with hostile blood; | |
| The trumpet spake not to the armèd throng, | |
| And kings sat still with awful eye, | |
| As if they surely knew their sovran Lord was by. | 60 |
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V 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 kissed, | 65 |
| Whispering new joys to the mild ocean, | |
| Who now hath quite forgot to rave, | |
| While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmèd wave. | |
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VI The stars with deep amaze | |
| Stand fixed in steadfast gaze, | 70 |
| Bending one way their precious influence, | |
| And will not take their flight, | |
| For all the morning light, | |
| Or Lucifer that often warned them thence: | |
| But in their glimmering orbs did glow, | 75 |
| Until their Lord himself bespake, and bid them go. | |
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VII And though the shady gloom | |
| Had given day her room, | |
| The sun himself withheld his wonted speed, | |
| And hid his head for shame, | 80 |
| As his inferior flame | |
| The new enlightened world no more should need; | |
| He saw a greater sun appear | |
| Than his bright throne, or burning axletree, could bear. | |
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VIII The shepherds on the lawn, | 85 |
| Or e’er 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; | 90 |
| Perhaps their loves, or else their sheep, | |
| Was all that did their silly thoughts so busy keep. | |
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IX When such music sweet | |
| Their hearts and ears did greet, | |
| As never was by mortal finger strook, | 95 |
| Divinely-warbled voice | |
| Answering the stringèd noise, | |
| As all their souls in blissful rapture took: | |
| The air, such pleasure loth to lose, | |
| With thousand echoes still prolongs each heavenly close. | 100 |
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X 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, | 105 |
| And that her reign had here its last fulfilling; | |
| She knew such harmony alone | |
| Could hold all heaven and earth in happier union. | |
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XI At last surrounds their sight | |
| A globe of circular light, | 110 |
| That with long beams the shame-faced night arrayed; | |
| The helmèd cherubim, | |
| And sworded seraphim, | |
| Are seen in glittering ranks with wings displayed, | |
| Harping in loud and solemn quire, | 115 |
| With unexpressive notes to Heaven’s new-born Heir. | |
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XII Such music (as ’tis said) | |
| Before was never made, | |
| But when of old the sons of morning sung, | |
| While the Creator great | 120 |
| His constellations set, | |
| And the well-balanced world on hinges hung, | |
| And cast the dark foundations deep, | |
| And bid the weltering waves their oozy channel keep. | |
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XIII Ring out, ye crystal spheres, | 125 |
| 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 base of Heaven’s deep organ blow; | 130 |
| And with your ninefold harmony | |
| Make up full consort to the angelic symphony. | |
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XIV For if such holy song | |
| Enwrap our fancy long, | |
| Time will run back, and fetch the age of gold; | 135 |
| 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. | 140 |
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XV Yea Truth and Justice then | |
| Will down return to men, | |
| Orbed in a rainbow; and like glories wearing | |
| Mercy will sit between, | |
| Throned in celestial sheen, | 145 |
| With radiant feet the tissued clouds down steering; | |
| And Heaven, as at some festival, | |
| Will open wide the gates of her high palace hall. | |
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XVI But wisest fate says no, | |
| This must not yet be so, | 150 |
| The babe lies yet in smiling infancy, | |
| That on the bitter cross | |
| Must redeem our loss; | |
| So both himself and us to glorify: | |
| Yet first to those ychained in sleep, | 155 |
| The wakeful trump of doom must thunder through the deep. | |
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XVII With such a horrid clang | |
| As on Mount Sinai rang, | |
| While the red fire and smouldering clouds out brake; | |
| The aged earth aghast | 160 |
| 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. | |
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XVIII And then at last our bliss | 165 |
| 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 usurpèd sway, | 170 |
| And wroth to see his kingdom fail, | |
| Swings the scaly horror of his folded tail. | |
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XIX The oracles are dumb, | |
| No voice or hideous hum | |
| Runs through the archèd roof in words deceiving; | 175 |
| Apollo from his shrine | |
| Can no more divine, | |
| With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving; | |
| No nightly trance, or breathèd spell, | |
| Inspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell. | 180 |
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XX 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, | 185 |
| The parting Genius is with sighing sent; | |
| With flower-inwoven tresses torn | |
| The Nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn. | |
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XXI In consecrated earth, | |
| And on the holy hearth, | 190 |
| 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, | 195 |
| While each peculiar power forgoes his wonted seat. | |
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XXII Peor and Baälim | |
| Forsake their temples dim, | |
| With that twice-battered god of Palestine; | |
| And mooned Ashtaroth, | 200 |
| 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. | |
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XXIII And sullen Moloch fled | 205 |
| 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; | 210 |
| The brutish gods of Nile as fast, | |
| Isis, and Orus, and the dog Anubis, haste. | |
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XXIV Nor is Osiris seen | |
| In Memphian grove or green, | |
| Trampling the unshowered grass with lowings loud; | 215 |
| 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. | 220 |
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XXV 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, | 225 |
| Not Typhon huge ending in snaky twine; | |
| Our Babe to show his Godhead true, | |
| Can in his swaddling bands control the damnèd crew. | |
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XXVI So when the sun in bed, | |
| Curtained with cloudy red, | 230 |
| 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 | 235 |
| Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-loved maze. | |
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XXVII 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 | 240 |
| Hath fixed her polished car, | |
| Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending: | |
| And all about the courtly stable | |
| Bright-harnessed angels sit in order serviceable. | |
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