Some as they went the blue-eyed violets strew,
Some spotless lilies in loose order threw.
Some did the way with full-blown roses spread,
Their smell divine, and colour strangely red;
Not such as our dull gardens proudly wear,
Whom weather's taint, and wind's rude kisses tear.
Such, I believe, was the first rose's hue,

Which, at God's word, in beauteous Eden grew;
Queen of the flowers, which made that orchard gay,
The morning-blushes of the Spring's new day.
With sober pace an heavenly maid walks in,
Her looks all fair, no sign of native sin
Through her whole body writ; immoderate grace
Spoke things far more than human in her face:
It casts a dusky gloom o'er all the flowers,
And with full beams their mingled light devours.
An angel straight broke from a shining cloud,

And pressed his wings, and with much reverence bowed;
Again he bowed, and grave approach he made,

And thus his sacred message sweetly said:

Hail! full of grace! thee the whole world shall call

Above all bless'd; thee, who shall bless them all.

Thy virgin womb in wondrous sort shall shroud
Jesus the God; (and then again he bowed)
Conception the great Spirit shall breathe on thee:
Hail thou! who must God's wife, God's mother be.'
With that his seeming form to heaven he reared,
(She low obeisance made) and disappeared.
Lo a new star three Eastern sages see;
(For why should only earth a gainer be?)
They saw this Phosphor's infant light, and knew
It bravely ushered in a sun as new;

They hasted all this rising sun t' adore;
With them rich myrrh, and early spices, bore.

Wise men! no fitter gift your zeal could bring;
You'll in a noisome stable find your king.
Anon a thousand devils run roaring in;
Some with a dreadful smile deform'dly grin;
Some stamp their cloven paws, some frown, and tear
The gaping snakes from their black-knotted hair;
As if all grief, and all the rage of hell

Were doubled now, or that just now they fell:
But when the dreaded maid they entering saw,
All fled with trembling fear and silent awe :
In her chaste arms the Eternal Infant lies,
The Almighty Voice changed into feeble cries.
Heaven contained virgins oft, and will do more;
Never did virgin contain Heaven before.
Angels peep round to view this mystic thing,
And halleluiah round, all halleluiah sing.

No longer could good David quiet bear
The unwieldy pleasure which o'erflowed him here:
It broke the fetter, and burst ope his eye;
Away the timorous Forms together fly.

Fixed with amaze he stood, and time must take,

To learn if yet he were at last awake.

Sometimes he thinks that Heaven this vision sent,
And ordered all the pageants as they went :
Sometimes that only 'twas wild Fancy's play,
The loose and scattered relics of the day.

When Gabriel (no bless'd sp'rit more kind or fair)
Bodies and clothes himself with thickened air;
All like a comely youth in life's fresh bloom,
Rare workmanship, and wrought by heavenly loom!
He took for skin a cloud most soft and bright
That e'er the mid-day sun pierced through with light;
Upon his cheeks a lively blush he spread,
Washed from the morning beauty's deepest red;

A harmless flaming meteor shone for hair,
And fell adown his shoulders with loose care:
He cuts out a silk mantle from the skies,
Where the most sprightly azure please the eyes;
This he with starry vapours spangles all,
Took in their prime ere they grow ripe, and fall:
Of a new rainbow, ere it fret or fade,

The choicest piece took out, a scarf is made;
Small streaming clouds he does for wings display,
Not virtuous lovers' sighs more soft than they;
These he gilds o'er with the sun's richest rays,
Caught gliding o'er pure streams on which he plays.
Thus dressed, the joyful Gabriel posts away,
And carries with him his own glorious day
Through the thick woods; the gloomy shades a while
Put on fresh looks, and wonder why they smile;
The trembling serpents close and silent lie;
The birds obscene far from his passage fly;
A sudden spring waits on him as he goes,
Sudden as that which by creation rose.
Thus he appears to David; at first sight
All earth-bred fears and sorrows take their flight:
In rushes joy divine, and hope, and rest;

6

A sacred calm shines through his peaceful breast.
Hail, man belov'd! from highest heaven,' said he,

My mighty Master sends thee health by me.

The things thou saw'st are full of truth and light,
Shaped in the glass of the divine foresight.
Even now old Time is harnessing the Years
To go in order thus: hence, empty fears!

Thy fate's all white; from thy bless'd seed shall spring
The promised Shilo, the great mystic King.

Round the whole earth his dreaded Name shall sound, And reach to worlds that must not yet be found:

The Southern clime him her sole Lord shall style,
Him all the North, even Albion's stubborn isle.
My fellow-servant, credit what I tell.'
Straight into shapeless air unseen he fell.

LIFE.

NASCENTES MORIMUR.'-Manil.

1 We're ill by these grammarians used: We are abused by words, grossly abused; From the maternal tomb

To the grave's fruitful womb

We call here Life; but Life's a name

That nothing here can truly claim:

This wretched inn, where we scarce stay to bait,
We call our dwelling-place;

We call one step a race:

But angels in their full-enlightened state,

Angels who live, and know what 'tis to be,

Who all the nonsense of our language see,

Who speak things, and our words their ill-drawn
picture scorn.

When we by a foolish figure say,

Behold an old man dead! then they

Speak properly, and cry, Behold a man-child born!

2 My eyes are opened, and I see

Through the transparent fallacy:

Because we seem wisely to talk

Like men of business, and for business walk

From place to place,

And mighty voyages we take,

And mighty journeys seem to make

O'er sea and land, the little point that has no space;

Because we fight, and battles gain,

Some captives call, and say the rest are slain;
Because we heap up yellow earth, and so
Rich, valiant, wise, and virtuous seem to grow;
Because we draw a long nobility

From hieroglyphic proofs of heraldry,
And impudently talk of a posterity;
And, like Egyptian chroniclers,
Who write of twenty thousand years,

With maravedies make the account,

That single time might to a sum amount;
We grow at last by custom to believe
That really we live;

Whilst all these shadows that for things we take, Are but the empty dreams which in death's sleep we make.

3 But these fantastic errors of our dream Lead us to solid wrong;

We pray God our friends' torments to prolong. And wish uncharitably for them

To be as long a-dying as Methusalem.

The ripened soul longs from his prison to come, But we would seal and sew up, if we could, the womb.

We seek to close and plaster up by art

The cracks and breaches of the extended shell, And in that narrow cell

Would rudely force to dwell

The noble, vigorous bird already winged to part.