In The Yule-Log Glow--Book 3 | Page 3

their silly thoughts so
busy keep.
When such music sweet
Their hearts and ears did greet,
As never
was by mortal fingers strook;
Divinely-warbled voice
Answering
the stringed noise,
As all their souls in blissful rapture took;
The air,
such pleasure loth to lose,
With thousand echoes still prolongs each
heavenly close.
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,
And that her reign had here its last fulfilling;

She knew such harmony alone
Could hold all heaven and earth in
happier union.
At last surrounds their sight
A globe of circular light,
That with
long beams the shame-faced night array'd;
The helmed cherubim,

And sworded seraphim,
Are seen in glittering ranks with wings
display'd,
Harping in loud and solemn quire,
With unexpressive
notes, to Heaven's new-born Heir.
Such music as, 'tis said,
Before was never made,
But when of old
the sons of morning sung,
While the Creator great
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.
Ring out, ye crystal spheres,
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 base of Heaven's deep organ blow,
And,
with your ninefold harmony,
Make up full concert to the angelic
symphony.

For, if such holy song
Enwrap our fancy long,
Time will run back
and fetch the age of gold,
And speckled Vanity
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.
Yea, Truth and Justice then
Will down return to men,
Orb'd in a
rainbow; and, like glories wearing,
Mercy will sit between,
Throned
in celestial sheen,
With radiant feet the tissued clouds down steering;

And Heaven, as at some festival,
Will open wide the gates of her
high palace-hall.
But wisest Fate says No,
This must not yet be so;
The Babe lies yet
in smiling infancy,
That on the bitter cross
Must redeem our loss,

So both himself and us to glorify:
Yet first, to those ychain'd in sleep,

The wakeful trump of doom must thunder through the deep;
With such a horrid clang
As on Mount Sinai rang,
While the red
fire and smouldering clouds outbreak:
The aged earth aghast
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.
And then at last our bliss
Full and perfect is,
But now begins; for,
from this happy day,
The Old Dragon, under ground
In straighter
limits bound,
Not half so far casts his usurped sway;
And, wroth to
see his kingdom fail,
Swinges the scaly horror of his folded tail.
The oracles are dumb,
No voice or hideous hum
Runs through the
arched roof in words deceiving.
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.
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,
The parting Genius is with sighing sent;

With flower-inwoven tresses torn,
The Nymphs in twilight shade of
tangled thickets, mourn.
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 foregoes his
wonted seat.
Peor and Baälim
Forsake their temples dim,
With that twice-batter'd
god of Palestine;
And mooned Ashtaroth,
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.
And sullen Moloch, fled,
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;
The brutish
gods of Nile as fast,
Isis, and Orus, and the dog Anubis, haste.
Nor is Osiris seen
In Memphian grove or green,
Trampling the
unshower'd grass with lowings loud:
Nor can he be at rest
Within
his sacred chest;
Naught but profoundest hell can be his shroud;
In
vain, with timbrell'd anthems dark,
The sable-stoled sorcerers bear his
worshipt ark.
He feels from Judah's land
The dreaded Infant's hand,
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 show
his Godhead true,
Can in his swaddling-bands control the damned
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 the
infernal jail,
Each fetter'd ghost slips to his several grave;
And the
yellow-skirted fays
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:
Heaven's youngest teemed star

Hath fix'd her polished car,
Her sleeping Lord, with handmaid
lamp attending:
And all about the courtly stable
Bright-harnessed
angels sit in order serviceable.
_John Milton._
THE FIRST ROMAN CHRISTMAS.
It was the calm and silent night!
Seven hundred years and fifty-three

Had Rome been growing up to