XXI. In consecrated earth, And on the holy hearth, 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, While each peculiar power forgoes his wonted seat. Peor and Baälim XXII. Forsake their temples dim, With that twice battered god of Palestine; Heaven's queen and mother both, Now sits not girt with tapers' holy shine; The Lybic Hammon shrinks his horn; 190 200 In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz mourn. XXIII. And sullen Moloch, fled, Hath left in shadows dread His burning idol all of blackest hue; They call the grisly king, In dismal dance about the furnace blue; 210 189. In, etc. He makes a mistake here, for the Lars and Lemurs were nearly the same, the latter being the genus and the former the species. Both were the souls of the dead, and they had nothing to do with consecrated earth, by which he would seem to mean a churchyard, a thing unknown to the ancients. 194. Flamens. He seems to use this word for priests in general; for the Roman Flamen was not a regular ministrant at a temple: see our Ovid's Fasti, Excurs. II.-quaint. See on Arcades, v. 47. 195. the chill, etc. A usual prodigy: see Virg. Geor. i. 480. 197. Peor, etc. For these deities, see Life of Milton, Pneumatology. 199. With that, etc., i.e. Dagon. 201. Heaven's, etc. He seems to have taken the idea of her being Heaven's mother from Selden, De Diis Syriis, for it does not occur in Scripture. 202. shine, i.q. sheen, v. 145.-shrinks, i.e. causes to shrink, draws in. We have not met with it elsewhere in a causal sense. 207. burning, i.e. that is heated internally so as to consume the infants placed in its arms. The brutish gods of Nile as fast, Isis, and Orus, and the dog Anubis hast. XXIV. Nor is Osiris seen In Memphian grove or green, Trampling the unshowered grass with lowings loud; Within his sacred chest, Nought but profoundest hell can be his shroud ; The sable-stoled sorcerers bear his worshiped ark. XXV. He feels, from Juda's land, The rays of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyn; Nor all the gods beside Longer dare abide, Nor Typhon huge ending in snaky twine. Our Babe, to shew his Godhead true, XXVI. So when the sun in bed, Curtained with cloudy red, Pillows his chin upon an orient wave, 212. hast, sc. away. Hast, i.q. haste: see Life of Milton, p. 384. 220 230 213. Nor, etc. He is in error here, for it was Apis, not Osiris, that was in the form of a bull. The chest however belongs to Osiris.—unshowered, as rain rarely falls in Egypt. 223. eyn, the old plural of eye. 226. Nor Typhon, etc. He means the Egyptian Typhon, whom the Greeks identified with their own being of the same name, to whom the 'snaky twine' belonged. See our Mythol. of Greece and Italy, p. 233, 3rd edit. 228. Can, etc. He had perhaps the infant Hercules in his mind. 231. Pillows, etc. As Warton observes, there is perhaps something too familiar in the expression pillows his chin. Petrarca however has an image of a similar nature: The flocking shadows pale Troop to the infernal jail, Each fettered ghost slips to his several grave, And the yellow-skirted fayes 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 Hath fixed her polished car, Her sleeping Lord with handmaid-lamp attending; 240 UPON THE CIRCUMCISION.-M. (1630.) YE flaming powers, and winged warriors bright, So sweetly sung your joy the clouds along, Through the soft silence of the listening night, 232. "And yonder shines Aurora's harbinger, At whose approach ghosts, wandering here and there, That in cross-ways and floods have burial, Already to their wormy beds are gone." Mids. N. Dr. iii. 2.-B. 232. The flocking shadows. By these he seems to mean infernal spirits as distinguished from ghosts and fays. 234. fettered, i.e. bound, obliged to return.-several, i.c. separate, distinct. 240. Heaven's, etc., i.e. the new star that had appeared to the Magi. He supposes it to be already stationed over the stable in Bethlehem.-teemed, i.e. born, brought forth. To teem is properly to empty. 243. courtly, i.e. that is now become a royal court. 244. Bright-harnessed, i.e. clad in bright armour. "The children of Israel went up harnessed out of the land of Egypt." Ex. xiii. 18.-N. 1. Ye, etc., i.e. Ye Seraphim and Cherubim: comp. Ode on Nat. v. 112. The former comes from a verb signifying to burn; the latter are represented as winged in the vision of Ezekiel. 2. erst, i.e. lately, at the Nativity. Erst, i.e. erest, is apparently the superlative of ere, before. Now mourn; and if, sad share with us to bear, Burn in your sighs, and borrow Seas wept from our deep sorrow. He who, with all Heaven's heraldry, whilere Sore doth begin His infancy to seize ! O more exceeding love or law more just! Emptied his glory, even to nakedness; And that great covenant which we still transgress Entirely satisfied, And the full wrath beside Of vengeful justice bore for our excess, And seals obedience first with wounding smart, This day. But oh! ere long, Huge pangs and strong Will pierce more near his heart. 7. Your, etc. On account of the opposition between fire and water. seems to have had in his mind the words of Ariel : -: "If you now beheld them, your affections Would become tender. Dost thou think so, spirit? Mine would, sir, were I human." Tempest, v. 1. 10. heraldry, i.e. troop of heralds announcing his arrival. 15. "Crudelis mater magis an puer improbus ille? Improbus ille puer; crudelis tu quoque mater." Virg. Buc. viii. 49.-R. 17. remediless, i.e. without remedy. He frequently uses this word: comp. Par. Lost, ix. 919; Sam. Agon. v. 648. 20. Emptied. See on Ode on Nativity, v. 8. 24. excess, i.e. transgression, excedo, excessus. 25. And seals, etc., i.e. gives the first proof of obedience by complying with circumcision, the first act enjoined by the Mosaic Law. "He that hath received his testimony hath set to his seal that God is true." John iii. 33. 28 THE PASSION.-M. (1630.) I. EREWHILE of music, and ethereal mirth, 11. For now to sorrow must I tune my song, And set my harp to notes of saddest woe, Dangers, and snares, and wrongs, and worse than so, Most perfect Hero, tried in heaviest plight III. He, sovran Priest, stooping his regal head, That dropped with odorous oil down his fair eyes, Poor fleshly tabernacle entered, 10 1. Erewhile, etc. Alluding to the Ode on the Nativity, composed for Christmas, while this was for the following Easter. 4. divide, i.e. join, unite with in musical divisions. "And all the while sweet music did divide Her looser notes, with Lydian harmony." F. Q. iii. 1, 40.-W. "Sung by a fair queen in a summer's bower With ravishing divisions to her lute." 1 Hen. IV. ii. 1.—W. 11. "The snares of death prevented me." Ps. xviii. 5.-K. 13. "To make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings." Heb. ii. 10.-T. 15. "Like the precious ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard." Ps. cxxxiii. 2.-K. 17. Poor, etc. Perhaps he had in his mind En. viii. 362 seq. |