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.

XV.

Yea, Truth and Justice then

Will down return to men,

Orb'd in a rainbow; and, like glories wearing, Mercy will sit between,

Thron'd 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,

XVI.

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;

XVII.

With such a horrid clang

As on mount Sinai rang,

While the red fire and smouldring clouds out

brake:

The aged earth aghast,

With terrour of that blast,

Shall from the surface to the center shake; When, at the world's last session,

The dreadful Judge in middle air shall spread his

throne.

XVIII.

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,

XIX.

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 priest from the prophetick cell.

XX.

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,

XXI.

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 Power foregoes his wonted seat

XXII.

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 tapers holy shine; The Libyck Hammon shrinks his horn,

In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz

mourn.

XXIII.

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

XXIV.

In Memphian grove or green,

Trampling the unshower'd grass with lowings

loud:

Nor can it be at rest

Within his sacred chest ;

Nought but profoundest hell can be his shroud; In vain with timbrell'd anthems dark

The sable-stoled sorcerers bear his worshipt ark.

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,

Nor Typhon huge ending in snaky twine : Our Babe, to shew his Godhead true,

Can in his swaddling bands controul the damned

crew.

XXVI.

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

maze.

XXVII

But see, the Virgin blest

Hath laid her Babe to rest;