[677]. Heads: appositive to 'the common rout of men.'
[683]. their highth of noon: the meridian of their glory.
[684]. Changest thy countenance: a similar expression, but with a different meaning, to that in Job xiv. 20: 'Thou changest his (man's) countenance, and sendest him away.'
[686]. or them to thee of service: or of service (from) them to thee.
[690]. Unseemly: unbecoming in human eye; 'falls' is a noun in apposition to the preceding thought, 'thou throwest them lower than thou didst exalt them high.'
[695-702]. Or to the unjust tribunals: there has been an occult reference all through this chorus to the wreck of the Puritan cause by the Restoration; but in these lines the reference becomes distinct. Milton has the trials of Vane and the Regicides in his mind. He himself had been in danger of the law; and, though he had escaped, it was to a 'crude (premature) old age,' afflicted by painful diseases from which his temperate life might have been expected to exempt him.—Masson.
[699]. deformed: attended with deformity.
[700]. crude: premature.
[701]. disordinate: inordinate, irregular; yet suffering without cause.
[707]. What: the word here, perhaps, means 'why.' The following question seems to support this.