When Gabriel (no bless'd sp'rit more kind or fair)
Bodies and clothes himself with thickened air;
All like a comely youth in life's fresh bloom,
Rare workmanship, and wrought by heavenly loom!
He took for skin a cloud most soft and bright
That e'er the mid-day sun pierced through with light;
Upon his cheeks a lively blush he spread,
Washed from the morning beauty's deepest red;
A harmless flaming meteor shone for hair,
And fell adown his shoulders with loose care:
He cuts out a silk mantle from the skies.
Where the most sprightly azure please the eyes;
This he with starry vapours spangles all,
Took in their prime ere they grow ripe, and fall:
Of a new rainbow, ere it fret or fade,
The choicest piece took out, a scarf is made;
Small streaming clouds he does for wings display,
Not virtuous lovers' sighs more soft than they;
These he gilds o'er with the sun's richest rays,
Caught gliding o'er pure streams on which he plays.
Thus dressed, the joyful Gabriel posts away,
And carries with him his own glorious day
Through the thick woods; the gloomy shades a while
Put on fresh, looks, and wonder why they smile;
The trembling serpents close and silent lie;
The birds obscene far from his passage fly;
A sudden spring waits on him as he goes,
Sudden as that which by creation rose.
Thus he appears to David; at first sight
All earth-bred fears and sorrows take their flight:
In rushes joy divine, and hope, and rest;
A sacred calm shines through his peaceful breast.
'Hail, man belov'd! from highest heaven,' said he.
'My mighty Master sends thee health by me.
The things thou saw'st are full of truth and light,
Shaped in the glass of the divine foresight.
Even now old Time is harnessing the Years
To go in order thus: hence, empty fears!
Thy fate's all white; from thy bless'd seed shall spring
The promised Shilo, the great mystic King.
Round the whole earth his dreaded Name shall sound.
And reach to worlds that must not yet be found:
The Southern clime him her sole Lord shall style,
Him all the North, even Albion's stubborn isle.
My fellow-servant, credit what I tell.'
Straight into shapeless air unseen he fell.
LIFE.
'NASCENTES MORIMUR.'—Manil.
1 We're ill by these grammarians used:
We are abused by words, grossly abused;
From the maternal tomb
To the grave's fruitful womb
We call here Life; but Life's a name
That nothing here can truly claim:
This wretched inn, where we scarce stay to bait,
We call our dwelling-place;
We call one step a race:
But angels in their full-enlightened state,
Angels who live, and know what 'tis to be,
Who all the nonsense of our language see,
Who speak things, and our words their ill-drawn picture scorn.
When we by a foolish figure say,
Behold an old man dead! then they
Speak properly, and cry, Behold a man-child born!
2 My eyes are opened, and I see
Through the transparent fallacy:
Because we seem wisely to talk
Like men of business, and for business walk
From place to place,
And mighty voyages we take,
And mighty journeys seem to make
O'er sea and land, the little point that has no space;
Because we fight, and battles gain,
Some captives call, and say the rest are slain;
Because we heap up yellow earth, and so
Rich, valiant, wise, and virtuous seem to grow;
Because we draw a long nobility
From hieroglyphic proofs of heraldry,
And impudently talk of a posterity;
And, like Egyptian chroniclers,
Who write of twenty thousand years,
With maravedies make the account,
That single time might to a sum amount;
We grow at last by custom to believe
That really we live;
Whilst all these shadows that for things we take,
Are but the empty dreams which in death's sleep we make.
3 But these fantastic errors of our dream
Lead us to solid wrong;
We pray God our friends' torments to prolong.
And wish uncharitably for them
To be as long a-dying as Methusalem.
The ripened soul longs from his prison to come,
But we would seal and sew up, if we could, the womb.
We seek to close and plaster up by art
The cracks and breaches of the extended shell,
And in that narrow cell
Would rudely force to dwell
The noble, vigorous bird already winged to part.
THE PLAGUES OF EGYPT.
I.
Is this thy bravery, Man! is this thy pride!
Rebel to God, and slave to all beside!
Captived by everything! and only free
To fly from thine own liberty!
All creatures, the Creator said, were thine;
No creature but might since say, Man is mine!
In black Egyptian slavery we lie,
And sweat and toil in the vain dru
Of tyrant Sin,
To which we trophies raise, and wear out all our breath
In building up the monuments of death.
We, the choice race, to God and angels kin!
In vain the prophets and apostles come
To call us home,
Home to the promised Canaan above,
Which does with nourishing milk and pleasant honey flow,
And even i' th' way to which we should be fed
With angels' tasteful bread:
But we, alas! the flesh-pots love;
We love the very leeks and sordid roots below.