VII.
Strait from his head each takes his laurel’d crown,
And on the golden pavement casts it down:
All prostrate fall before heaven’s high imperial throne,
When the new saint begins his song alone;
Wond’rous even there it was confest,
Scarce to be equalled by the rest;
Herbert nor Crashaw, though on earth divine,
So sweetly could their numbers join!
When, lo! the light of twenty thousand suns,
All in one body, shining all at once,
Darts from the imperial to this lower court;
A light which they but hardly could support!
Then the great anthem was begun,
Which all the hallowed bards together sung;
And by no choir of angels is outdone,
But by the great seraphic choir alone,
That day and night surround the awful throne of heaven’s eternal King;
Even they themselves did the great chorus fill,
And brought the grateful sounds to heaven’s high holiest hill.