I WHO erewhile the happy garden sung,
By one man's disobedience lost, now sing
Recover'd Paradise to all mankind,
By one man's firm obedience fully tried
Through all temptation, and the Tempter foil'd
In all his wiles, defeated and repuls'd,
And Eden rais'd in the waste wilderness.
Thou spirit who ledst this glorious Eremite
Into the desert, his victorious field,
Against the spiritual foe, and brought him thence
By proof th' undoubted Son of God, inspire,
As thou art wont, my prompted song, else mute,
And bear through height or depth of Nature's bounds
With prosp'rous wing full summ'd, to tell of deeds
Above heroic, though in secret done,
And unrecorded left through many an age,
Worthy t' have not remain'd so long unsung!
Now had the great Proclaimer, with a voice
More awful than the sound of trumpet, cried
Repentance, and heav'n's kingdom nigh at hand
To all baptiz'd: to this great baptism flock'd
With awe the regions round, and with them came
From Nazareth the son of Joseph deem'd,
To the flood Jordan, came as then obscure,
Unmark'd, unknown; but him the Baptist soon