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Nought but profoundest hell can be his shroud: In vain with timbrelled anthems dark

The sable-stoled sorcerers bear his worshipped ark.

He feels from Judah's land

The dreaded Infant's hand,

The rays of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyne; Nor 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.

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So, when the sun in bed,

Curtained with cloudy red,

Pillows his chin upon an orient wave,

The flocking shadows pale

Troop to the infernal jail,

Each fettered 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;

ON THE MORNING OF CHRIST'S NATIVITY.

Time is, our tedious song should here have ending; Heaven's youngest-teemèd star

Hath fixed her polished car,

Her sleeping LORD with handmaid lamp attending; And all about the courtly stable

Bright-harnessed Angels sit in order serviceable.

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be Expulsion from Paradise.

EVE'S LAMENT.

UNEXPECTED stroke, worse than of death! Must I thus leave thee, Paradise? thus leave Thee, native soil, these happy walks and shades, Fit haunt of Gods? where I had hope to spend,

THE EXPULSION FROM PARADISE.

Quiet, though sad, the respite of that day
That must be mortal to us both. O flowers,
That never will in other climate grow,
My early visitation, and my last

At even, which I bred up with tender hand
From the first opening bud, and gave ye names,
Who now shall rear ye to the sun, or rank
Your tribes, and water from th' ambrosial fount?
Thee lastly, nuptial bower, by me adorned
With what to sight or smell was sweet, from thee
How shall I part, and whither wander down

Into a lower world, to this obscure

And wild? how shall we breathe in other air
Less pure, accustomed to immortal fruits?"

Now too nigh

Th' Archangel stood, and from the other hill
To their fixed station, all in bright array
The Cherubim descended; on the ground
Gliding meteorous, as evening mist

Risen from a river o'er the marish glides,
And gathers ground fast at the lab'rer's heel
Homeward returning. High in front advanced,
The brandished sword of GOD before them blazed
Fierce as a comet; which with torrid heat,
And vapour as the Lybian air adust,
Began to parch that temp'rate clime; whereat
In either hand the hast'ning Angel caught
Our ling'ring parents, and to the eastern gate
Led them direct, and down the cliff as fast
To the subjected plain; then disappeared.
They looking back, all th' eastern side beheld
Of Paradise, so late their happy seat,
Waved over by that flaming brand, the gate

With dreadful faces thronged and fiery arms:

Some natural tears they dropped, but wiped them soon:

The world was all before them, where to choose

Their place of rest, and Providence their guide:

They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow,
Through Eden took their solitary way.

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