Not half so far casts his usurped sway, 170
And wroth to see his kingdom fail,
Swindges the scaly horror of his folded tail.

XIX.
The oracles are dumb,
No voice or hideous hum

Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving.
Apollo from his shrine

176 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 prophetic cell.

XX.
The lonely mountains o'er,

181 And the resounding shore, A voice of weeping heard and loud lament;

From in his younger years, for he was Apollo who should reign after him, ftill pleased with it when he was and her answering that an Hebrew older, and had his eye upon it se- boy had commanded her to leave veral times in the Paradise Lost. that temple and return to Hell. See

176. Apollo from his fhrine Suidas in Augustus Cæsar. Can no more divine, &c] Our au 183. A voice of weeping beard thor builds here upon the common and loud lament; ] Alluding to hypothesis of the oracles being the story of a voice proclaming that fruck dumb at the coming of the great Pan was dead, and imChrist, which is allowable enough mediately was heard a great groanin a young poet: and in this paf- ing and lamentation. See more to fage he alludes particularly to the this purpose in Plutarch's treatise famous story of Augustus Cæsar's De oraculorum defectu. consulting the Pythia or priestess of

191. Lars,

From haunted spring, and dale
Edg'd with poplar pale,

1
The parting Genius is with sighing sent;

??? With flowr-in woven treffes torn The Nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets

mourn.

XXI.
In consecrated earth,
And on the holy hearth,

190
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.

XXII.
Peor and Baälim
Forsake their temples dim,

With

195

!

mens,

191. Lars, and Lemures) Hous- Judg. XVI. and by the ark of hold Gods and Night Spirits. Fla- God, 1 Sam. V. Our author is priests.

larger in his account of these dei*199. With that twice batterid ties in the first book of the Para

God of Palefine ; ) Dagon, dise Loft, and thither we muft rewho was tuice batter'd by Samson, fer our reader and to the notes

there.

200

With that twice batter'd God of Palestine;
And mooned Ashtaroth,
Heay'n's
queen

and mother both,
Now fits not girt with tapers holy shine ;
The Lybic Hammon shrinks his horn,
In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz

mourn.

XXIII. And sullen Moloch fled,

205 Hath left in shadows dread

His burning idol all of blackest hue;
In vain with cymbals ring
They call the grilly king,

In dismal dance about the furnace blue; 212
The brutish Gods of Nile as fast,
Isis and Orus, and the dog Anubis halte.

XXIV.
Nor is Osiris seen
In Memphian grove or green,

Trampling there.. Selden had a few years.

201.
Heav'n's

queen

and mot ber before publish'd his De Diis Sy both,] She was caHed reging ris Syntagmata duo, and there. cæli and mater Deúm. See Selden. fore we may suppose Milton was

the dog Anubis] Virg. so well instructed in this kind of Æn. VIII. 698. latrator Anubis. Icaring.

212.

215.-thes

216

225

Trampling the unshowr'd grass with lowings loud: Nor can he be at rest Within his facred chest,

Nought but profoundest Hell can be his shroud;
In vain with timbrel'd anthems dark
The fable-stoled sorcerers bear his worshipt ark. 220

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,

Not Typhon huge ending in snaky twine: Our babe to show his Godhead true, Can in his swadling bands controll the damned crew.

XXVI. So when the sun in bed, Curtain'd with cloudy red,

230 Pillows his chin upon an orient wave,

The 215.-the unshowr'd grass] There Our Babe to new his Godhead being no rain in Egypt, but the country made fruitful with the over- but this pitiful jingle could not be flowings of the Nile. Richardson. Milton's. He undoubtedly wrote

it loow.

Calton. 227. Our babe to foow &c ) In 244. Bright-barnejt ) Dreft, the printed copies it is

arm'd, accoutred. Arnese in Ica

true :

The flocking shadows pale
Troop to th’infernal jail,

Each fetter'd ghost flips to his several grave, 234 And the yellow-skirted Fayes

(maze. Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-lov'd

XXVII.
But see the Virgin blest
Hath laid her Babe to rest,

Time is our tedious fong should here have ending: Heav'n's youngest teemed star

240 Hath fix'd her polish'd car,

Her deeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending: And all about the courtly stable Bright-harnest Angels fit in order serviceable.

IV.

* The PASSION.

I.

Rewhile of music, and ethereal mirth,

And lian is a general name for all kinds putteth it off. Exod. XIII. 18. The of habits and ornaments.

children of Israel went up harnessed

Richardson. out of the land of Egypt. Harness is used for armour in our * It appears from the beginning translation of the Bible. 1 Kings of this poem, that it was composed XX. 11. Let not him that girdeth on after, and probably soon after, the bis harness, boast himself, as he that ode on the Nativity,

22. These