Page:Golden Treasury of English Songs and Lyrics.djvu/63

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Second
47
In vain with cymbals’ ringThey call the grisly king,In dismal dance about the furnace blue;The brutish gods of Nile as fastIsis, and Orus, and the dog Anubis, haste.
Nor is Osiris seenIn Memphian grove, or green,Trampling the unshower’d grass with lowings loud:Nor can he be at restWithin his sacred chest;Nought but profoundest hell can be his shroud;In vain with timbrell’d anthems dark The sable stoléd sorcerers bear his worshipt ark.
He feels from Juda’s landThe dreaded infant’s hand;The rays of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyn;Nor all the gods besideLonger dare abide,Nor Typhon huge ending in snaky twine:Our Babe, to show his Godhead true,Can in his swaddling bands control the damnéd crew.
So, when the sun in bed Curtain’d with cloudy redPillows his chin upon an orient wave,The flocking shadows paleTroop to the infernal jail,Each fetter’d ghost slips to his several grave;And the yellow-skirted faysFly 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-teeméd star Hath fixed her polish’d car,Her sleeping Lord with hand-maid lamp attending: And all about the courtly stable Bright-harness’d angels sit in order serviceable. J. Milton
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