Nor is Osiris seen In Memphian grove or green, Trampling the unshow’r’d grass with lowings loud: Nor can he be at rest Within his sacred chest, Nought but profoundest hell can be his shroud; In vain with timbrell’d anthems dark The sable-stolèd sorcerers bear his worship’d ark.
He feels from Juda’s land The dreaded infant’s hand, The rays of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyn; Not all the gods beside, Longer dare abide, Not Typhon huge ending in snaky twine: Our Babe, to show his Godhead true, Can in his swaddling bands control the damnèd crew.
So, when the sun in bed, Curtain’d with cloudy red, Pillows his chin upon an orient wave, The flocking shadows pale Troop to th’ infernal jail, Each fetter’d ghost slips to his several grave; And the yellow-skirted Fayes Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-loved maze.
But see the Virgin blest Hath laid her Babe to rest; Time is, our tedious song should here have ending; Heav’n’s youngest teemèd star Hath fix’d her polish’d car, Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending; And all about the courtly stable Bright-harness’d Angels sit in order serviceable.
J. Milton.
[ WINTER]
In a drear-nighted December, Too happy, happy Tree, Thy branches ne’er remember Their green felicity: The north cannot undo them, With a sleety whistle through them; Nor frozen thawings glue them From budding at the prime.
In a drear-nighted December, Too happy, happy Brook, Thy bubblings ne’er remember Apollo’s summer look; But with a sweet forgetting, They stay their crystal fretting, Never, never petting About the frozen time.
Ah, would ’twere so with many A gentle girl and boy! But were there ever any Writh’d not at passèd joy? To know the change and feel it, When there is none to heal it, Nor numbèd sense to steal it, Was never said in rhyme.