ON THE MORNING OF CHRIST’S NATIVITY.
[Composed 1629.]
I.
This is the month, and this the happy morn,
Wherein the Son of Heaven’s eternal King,
Of wedded maid and virgin mother born,
Our great redemption from above did bring;
[For so the holy sages once did sing], 5
That he [our deadly forfeit should release],
And with his Father work us a perpetual peace.
II.
That glorious form, that light unsufferable,
And that far-beaming blaze of majesty,
Wherewith [he wont] at Heaven’s high council-table 10
To sit the midst of Trinal Unity,
He laid aside, and, here with us to be,
Forsook the courts of everlasting day,
And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay.
III.
Say, Heavenly Muse, shall not [thy sacred vein] 15
Afford a present to the Infant God?
Hast thou no verse, no hymn, or solemn strain,
To welcome him to this his new abode,
Now while the heaven, by [the Sun’s team] untrod,
Hath took no print of the approaching light, 20
And all the spangled host keep watch in squadrons bright?
IV.
See how from far upon the eastern road
The star-led wizards haste with odors sweet!
Oh! run; [prevent them with thy humble ode],
And lay it lowly at his blessed feet; 25
Have thou the honor first thy Lord to greet,
And join thy voice unto the Angel Quire,
From out his secret altar [touched with hallowed fire].
The Hymn.
I.
It was the winter wild,
While the heaven-born child 30
All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies;
Nature, in awe to him,
Had doffed her gaudy trim,
With her great Master so to sympathize:
It was no season then for her 35
To wanton with the Sun, her lusty paramour.
II.
Only with speeches fair
She woos the gentle air
To hide her guilty front with innocent snow,
And on her naked shame, 40
[Pollute] with sinful blame,
The saintly veil of maiden white to throw;
Confounded, that her Maker’s eyes
Should look so near upon her foul deformities.
III.
But he, her fears to cease, 45
Sent down the meek-eyed Peace:
She, crowned with olive green, came softly sliding
Down through [the turning sphere],
His ready harbinger,
[With turtle wing] the amorous clouds dividing; 50
And, waving wide her myrtle wand,
She strikes a universal peace through sea and land.
IV.
No war, or battle’s sound,
Was heard the world around;
The idle spear and shield were high uphung; 55
[The hooked chariot] stood,
Unstained with hostile blood;
The trumpet spake not to the armed throng;
And kings sat still with awful eye,
As if they surely knew their [sovran] Lord was by. 60
V.
But peaceful was the night
Wherein [the Prince of Light]
His reign of peace upon the earth began.
[The winds, with wonder whist],
Smoothly the waters kissed, 65
Whispering new joys to the mild [Ocean],
Who now hath quite forgot to rave,
While [birds of calm] sit brooding on the charmed wave.
VI.
The stars, with deep amaze,
Stand fixed in steadfast gaze, 70
Bending one way [their precious influence],
And will not take their flight,
Or [Lucifer] that often warned them thence;
But in their glimmering orbs did glow, 75
Until their Lord himself bespake, and bid them go.
VII.
And, though the shady gloom
Had given day her room,
The Sun himself withheld his wonted speed,
And hid his head for shame, 80
[As] his inferior flame
The new-enlightened world no more should need:
He saw a greater Sun appear
Than his bright throne or burning axletree could bear.
VIII.
The shepherds on the lawn, 85
Sat simply chatting in a rustic row;
[Full little thought they than]
That [the mighty Pan]
Was kindly come to live with them below: 90
Perhaps their loves, or else their sheep,
Was all that did their silly thoughts so busy keep.
IX.
When such music sweet
Their hearts and ears did greet
As never was [by mortal finger strook], 95
Divinely-warbled voice
Answering the stringed noise,
[As all their souls in blissful rapture took]:
The air, such pleasure loth to lose, 99
[With thousand echoes] still prolongs each heavenly close.
X.
Nature, that heard such sound
Beneath the hollow round
Of [Cynthia’s seat] the Airy region thrilling,
Now was almost won
To think her part was done, 105
And that her reign had here its last fulfilling:
She knew such harmony alone
Could hold all Heaven and Earth in happier [union].
XI.
At last surrounds their sight
A globe of circular light, 110
That with long beams the shamefaced Night arrayed;
Are seen in glittering ranks with wings displayed,
Harping in loud and solemn quire, 115
[With unexpressive notes], to Heaven’s new-born Heir.
XII.
Such music (as ’tis said)
Before was never made,
[But when of old the Sons of Morning sung],
While the Creator great 120
His constellations set,
And the well-balanced World on hinges hung,
And cast the dark foundations deep,
And bid [the weltering waves] their oozy channel keep.
XIII.
[Ring out, ye crystal spheres]! 125
Once bless our human ears,
If ye have power to touch our senses so;
And let your silver chime
Move in melodious time;
And let the bass of heaven’s deep organ blow; 130
And with your ninefold harmony
Make up full consort to the angelic symphony.
XIV.
For, if such holy song
Enwrap our fancy long,
Time will run back and fetch the Age of Gold; 135
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. 140
XV.
Yea, Truth and Justice then
Will down return to men,
Orbed in a rainbow; and, [like glories wearing],
Mercy will sit between,
Throned in celestial sheen, 145
With radiant feet the tissued clouds down steering;
And Heaven, as at some festival,
Will open wide the gates of her high palace-hall.
XVI.
But wisest Fate says No,
This must not yet be so; 150
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 ychained in sleep], 155
The wakeful trump of doom must thunder through the deep.
XVII.
As on Mount Sinai rang,
While the red fire and smouldering clouds outbrake:
The aged Earth, aghast 160
With terror of that blast,
Shall from the surface to the centre 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 165
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, 170
And, wroth to see his kingdom fail,
Swinges the scaly horror of his folded tail.
XIX.
No voice or hideous hum
Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving. 175
[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-eyed priest from the prophetic cell. 180
XX.
The lonely mountains o’er,
And the resounding shore,
A voice of weeping heard and loud lament;
From haunted spring, and dale
Edged with poplar pale, 185
The parting [Genius] is with sighing sent;
With flower-inwoven tresses 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], 195
While each peculiar power forgoes his wonted seat.
XXII.
Forsake their temples dim,
With [that twice-battered god of Palestine];
And [mooned Ashtaroth], 200
Heaven’s queen and mother both,
Now sits 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 grisly king,
In dismal dance about [the furnace blue]; 210
The brutish gods of Nile as fast,
[Isis, and Orus, and the dog Anubis], haste.
XXIV.
In Memphian grove or green, 214
Trampling [the unshowered grass] with lowings loud; 215
Nor can he be at rest
Within his sacred chest;
Nought but profoundest Hell can be his shroud;
In vain, with timbrelled anthems dark,
The sable-stoled sorcerers bear his worshipped 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, 225
Not Typhon huge ending in snaky twine:
Our Babe, to show his Godhead true,
Can in his swaddling bands control the damned crew.
XXVI.
So, when the sun in bed,
Curtained with cloudy red, 230
Pillows his chin upon an orient wave,
The flocking shadows pale
Troop to the infernal jail,
Each fettered ghost slips to his several grave,
And the yellow-skirted fays 235
Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-loved maze.
XXVII.
But see! the Virgin blest
Hath laid her Babe to rest.
Time is our tedious song should here have ending:
[Heaven’s youngest-teemed star] 240
[Hath fixed her polished car],
Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending;
And all about the courtly stable
Bright-harnessed Angels sit in order serviceable.