With such a horrid clang
As on mount Sinai rang,

[brake :
While the red fire and smouldering clouds out-
The aged Earth aghast
With terrour of that blast,

Shall from the surface to the centre shake; When, at the world's last session, The dreadful Judge 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,
Swindges the scaly horrour 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-ey'd priests 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 flower-inwoven tresses torn
The nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets

mourn.

In consecrated earth,
And on the holy hearth,

[plaint;
The Lars, and Lemures, moan with midnight
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 Baälim
Forsake their temples dim,

With that twice-batter'd god of Palestine ;
And mooned Ashtaroth,
Heaven's

queen

and mother both, Now sits not girt with taper's holy shine; The Libyc 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 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 timbrellid anthems dark The sable-stoled sorcerers bear his worshipt ark.

He feels from Judah's land
The dreaded infant's hand,

The rays of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyn;
Nor 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 controll the damned

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 Fayes
Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-lov'd

But see, the Virgin blest
Hath laid her babe to rest;

Time is, our tedious song should here have ending.
Heaven's youngest-teemed 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,

271

WALLER.

EDMUND WALLER, born at Coleshill, Hertfordshire, in March, 1605, was the son of Robert Waller, Esq. a gentleman of an ancient family and good fortune, who married a sister of the celebrated John Hampden. The death of his father during his infancy left him heir to an estate of 35001. a year, at that period an ample fortune. He was educated first at Eton, whence he was removed to King's College in Cambridge. His election to parliament was as early as between his sixteenth or seventeenth year ; and it was not much later that he made his appearance as a poet : and it is remarkable that a copy of verses which he addressed to Prince Charles, in his eighteenth year, exhibits a style and character of versification as perfectly formed as those of his maturest productions. He again served in parliament before he was of age'; and he continued his services to a later period. Not insensible of the value of wealth, he augmented his paternal fortune by marriage with a rich city heiress. In the long intermissions of parliament which occurred after