So fweetly fung your joy the clouds along

Through the foft filence of the lift'ning night;
Now mourn, and if sad share with us to bear
Your fiery effence can diftil no tear,
Burn in your fighs, and borrow

Seas wept from our deep forrow:

He who with all Heav'n's heraldry whilere

Enter'd the world, now bleeds to give us ease;
Alas, how foon our fin

Sore doth begin

His infancy to feise!

O more exceeding love or law more just?
Just law indeed, but more exceeding love!
For we by rightful doom remedilefs

Were loft in death, till he that dwelt above
High thron'd in fecret bliss, for us frail dust
Emptied his glory, ev'n to nakedness;
And that great covenant which we still tranfgrefs
Entirely fatisfied,

5

IO

15

20

And

Improbus ille puer: crudelis tu quoque mater. Richardson. 20. Emptied his glory, ] An expreffion taken from Philipp. II. 7.

but not as it is in our tranflation He made himself of no reputation, but as it is in the original auTOV exevwoɛ, He emptied himself.

D 3

24.- for

And the full wrath befide

Of vengeful justice bore for our excefs,

And feals obedience firft with wounding fmart 25 This day, but a ere long

Huge pangs and strong

Will pierce more near his heart.

BLE

Wed

VII.

At a SOLEMN MUSIC.

LEST pair of Sirens, pledges of Heav'n's joy, Sphere-born harmonious fifters, Voice and Verse, your divine founds, and mix'd pow'r employ Dead things with inbreath'd sense able to pierce, And to our high-rais'd phantafy present

5

That

Dead things with inbreath'd fenfe
able to pierce,

And as your equal raptures temper'd
Sweet

In high myfterious happy Spoufal

meet,

Snatch us from earth a while,
Us of ourselves and native woes
beguile,

And to our high-rais'd phantafy
prefent &c.

6.

of pure concent,] So we

Mix your choice words, and happiest read in the Manufcript, and in the founds employ

edition of 1673, and we prefer the

authority

That undisturbed fong of pure concent,
Ay fung before the faphir-color'd throne
To him that fits thereon

With faintly shout, and folemn jubilee,
Where the bright Seraphim in burning row
Their loud up-lifted angel-trumpets blow,
And the cherubic host in thousand quires
Touch their immortal harps of golden wires,
With thofe juft Spirits that wear victorious palms,
Hymns devout and holy pfalms

Singing everlastingly;

That we on earth with undifcording voice
May rightly answer that melodious noise;

As once we did, till difproportion'd fin

10

15

Jarr'd

With thofe juft Spirits that wear
the blooming palms,
Hymns devout and facred pfalms
Singing everlaftingly,

While all the ftarry rounds and
arches blue

Refound and echo Hallelu;
That we on earth &c.

The victorions palms is in allufion
to Rev. VII. 9. clothed with white
robes, and palms in their hands.

18. May rightly answer that melodious noife;] The following D 4

lines

Jarr'd against nature's chime, and with harsh din 20 Broke the fair mufic that all creatures made

i

To their great Lord, whofe love their motion sway'd In perfect diapafon, whilft they stood

In first obedience, and their state of good.

O may we foon again renew that song,

And keep in tune with Heav'n, till God ere long

To his celestial confort us unite,

25

To live with him, and fing in endless morn of light.

VIII.

* An Epitaph on the MARCHION ESS of Winchefter.

HIS rich marble doth enter

TH

The honor'd wife of Winchester, A Vicount's daughter, an Earl's heir, Befides what her virtues fair

lines were thus at firft in the Ma- Plin. Lib. 2. Sect. 20. nufcript.

By leaving out those harsh ill founding jars

Of clamorous fin that all our mufic

mars,

And in our lives, and in our fong May keep in tune with Heav'n, till God ere long &c.

23. In perfect diapafon,] Concord through all the tones, δια πασων.

Added

Ita septem

tonos effici, quam diapafon harmoniam vocant, hoc eft, univerfitaRichardfon.

tem concentus.

28. To live with him, and fing &c] In the Manufcript the last line ftands thus,

To live and fing with him in end-
lefs morn of light.
*This Lady was Jane, daugh-

ter

Yet had the number of her days

Been as complete as was her praise,

Nature and fate had had no ftrife

In giving limit to her life.

Her high birth, and her

graces

fweet

15

Quickly found a lover meet;

The virgin quire for her request

The God that fits at marriage feaft;
He at their invoking came

But with a scarce well-lighted flame;

ter of Thomas Lord Vicount Savage of Rock-Savage in the countty of Chefter, who by marriage became the heir of Lord Darcy Earl of Rivers; and was the wife of John Marquifs of Winchefter, and the mother of Charles first Duke of Bolton. She died in childbed of a fecond fon in the 23d year of her age, and Milton made thefe verfes at Cambridge as appears by the fequel.

20 And