See how from far, upon the eastern road,
The star-led wizards haste with odours sweet :
O run, prevent them with thy humble ode
And lay it lowly at his blessed feet;

Have thou the honour first thy Lord to greet,
And join thy voice unto the angel quire

From out his secret altar touch'd with hallow'd fire.

THE HYMN

It was the winter wild

While the heaven-born Child

All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies;
Nature in awe to him

Had doff'd 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, crown'd 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.

No war, or battle's sound

Was heard the world around :

The idle spear and shield were high up hung;
The hooked chariot stood

Unstain'd with hostile blood;

The trumpet spake not to the arméd throng;
And kings sat still with awful eye,

As if they surely knew their sovran 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

Whispering new joys to the mild oceán

Who now hath quite forgot to rave,

While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmed wave,

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

Bending one way their precious influence;

And will not take their flight

For all the morning light,

Or Lucifer that 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

Sate 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 stringéd 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 aery 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 shamefaced night array'd; The helméd Cherubim

And sworded Seraphim

Are seen in glittering ranks with wings display'd,
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 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 base 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

Throned 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 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 terrour of that blast

Shall from the surface to the centre shake,

When, at the world's last sessión,

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 usurpéd sway ;

And, wroth to see his kingdom fail,

Swindges the scaly horrour of his folded tail.

The oracles are dumb ;

No voice or hideous hum

Runs through the archéd roof in words deceiving :
Apollo from his shrine

Can no more divine,

With hollow shriek the steep 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;
From haunted spring and dale

Edged 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 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 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;