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It was the
winter wild,
While the heaven-born Child
All
meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies;
Nature in awe
to Him
Had doffed her gaudy trim,
With her great
Master so to sympathize:
It was no season then for
her
To wanton with the sun, her lusty paramour.
Only with speeches fair
She woos the gentle air
To hide her guilty front with innocent snow,
And on
her naked shame,
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.
But He, her fears to cease,
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;
And waving wide her
myrtle wand,
She strikes a universal peace through
sea and land.
Nor war, or battle's sound
Was
heard the world around:
The idle spear and shield
were high uphung,
The hooked chariot stood
Unstained 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 kist,
Whisp'ring new joys to the mild ocean,
Who now hath quite forgot to rave,
While birds of
calm sit brooding on the charmed wave.
The stars
with deep amaze
Stand fixed in steadfast gaze,
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,
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-enlightened 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;
Perhaps their loves, or else their sheep,
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 finger strook,
Divinely-warbled voice
Answering the stringed noise,
As all their souls in blissful rapture took:
The air
such pleasure loth to lose,
With thousand echoes
still prolongs each 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 heav'n and earth in
happier union.
At last surrounds their sight
A
globe of circular light,
That with long beams the
shamefaced night arrayed;
The helmed Cherubim,
And
sworded Seraphim,
Are seen in glittering ranks with
wings displayed,
Harping in loud and solemn quire,
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-balanced world on hinges hung,
And cast the dark
foundations deep,
And bid the welt'ring 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 base of heav'n's deep
organ blow;
And with your ninefold harmony
Make up
full consort to th' 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,
Orbed in a rainbow; and, like glories wearing,
Mercy will sit between,
Throned in celestial sheen,
With radiant feet the tissued clouds down steering;
And Heav'n, 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 ychained 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 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 popular 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 Pow'r forgoes his
wonted seat.
Peor and Baalim
Forsake their
temples dim,
With that twice-battered God of
Palestine;
And mooned Ashtaroth,
Heav'n'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 stoled
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 damned crew.
So when the sun in bed,
Curtained with cloudy
red,
Pillows his chin upon an orient wave,
The
flocking shadows pale
Troop to th' infernal jail,
Each fettered 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-teemed star
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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