On The Morning Of Christs Nativity.

I     This is the Month, and this the happy morn     Wherin the Son of Heav'ns eternal King,     Of wedded Maid, and Virgin Mother born,     Our great redemption from above did bring;     For so the holy sages once did sing,     That he our deadly forfeit should release,     And with his Father work us a perpetual peace.     II     That glorious Form, that Light unsufferable,     And that far-beaming blaze of Majesty,     Wherwith he wont at Heav'ns high Councel-Table,     To sit the midst of Trinal Unity,     He laid aside; and here with us to be,     Forsook the Courts of everlasting Day,     And chose with us a darksom House of mortal Clay.     III     Say Heav'nly Muse, shall not thy sacred vein     Afford a present to the Infant God?     Hast thou no vers, no hymn, or solemn strein,     To welcom him to this his new abode,     Now while the Heav'n by the Suns team untrod,     Hath took no print of the approching light,     And all the spangled host keep watch in squadrons bright?     IV     See how from far upon the Eastern rode     The Star-led Wisards haste with odours sweet,     O run,    prevent them with thy humble ode,     And lay it lowly at his blessed feet;     Have thou the honour first, thy Lord to greet,     And joyn thy voice unto the Angel Quire,     From out his secret Altar toucht with hallow'd fire.     The Hymn.     I     IT was the Winter wilde,     While the Heav'n-born-childe,     All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies;     Nature in aw to him     Had doff't her gawdy trim,     With her great Master so to sympathize:     It was no season then for her     To wanton with the Sun her lusty Paramour.     II     Only with speeches fair     She woo'd the gentle Air     To hide her guilty front with innocent Snow,     And on her naked shame,     Pollute with sinfull blame,     The Saintly Vail of Maiden white to throw,     Confounded, that her Makers eyes     Should look so near upon her foul deformities.     III     But he her fears to cease,     Sent down the meek-eyd Peace,     She crown'd with Olive green, came softly sliding     Down through the turning sphear     His ready Harbinger,     With Turtle wing the amorous clouds dividing,     And waving wide her mirtle wand,     She strikes a universall Peace through Sea and Land.     IV     No War, or Battails sound     Was heard the World around,     The idle spear and shield were high up hung;     The hooked Chariot stood     Unstain'd with hostile blood,     The Trumpet spake not to the armed throng,     And Kings sate still with awfull eye,     As if they surely knew their sovran Lord was by.     V     But peacefull was the night     Wherin the Prince of light     His raign of peace upon the earth began:     The Windes with wonder whist,     Smoothly the waters kist,     Whispering new joyes to the milde Ocean,     Who now hath quite forgot to rave,     While Birds of Calm sit brooding on the charmed wave.     VI     The Stars with deep amaze     Stand fit in steadfast gaze,     Bending one way their pretious influence,     And will not take their flight,     For all the morning light,     Or Lucifer that often warned them thence;     But in their glimmering Orbs did glow,     Until their Lord himself bespake, and bid them go.     VII     And though the shady gloom     Had given day her room,     The Sun himself with-held his wonted speed,     And hid his head for shame,     As his inferior flame,     The new enlightened world no more should need;     He saw a greater Sun appear     Then his bright Throne, or burning Axletree could bear.     VIII     The Shepherds on the Lawn,     Or ere the point of dawn,     Sate simply chatting in a rustic row;     Full little thought they than,     That the mighty Pan     Was kindly com to live with them below;     Perhaps their loves, or els their sheep,     Was all that did their silly thoughts so busie keep.     IX     When such Musick sweet     Their hearts and ears did greet,     As never was by mortal finger strook,     Divinely-warbled voice     Answering the stringed noise,     As all their souls in blisfull rapture took:     The Air such pleasure loth to lose,     With    thousand echo's still prolongs each heav'nly close.     X     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 don     And that her raign had here its last fulfilling;     She knew such harmony alone     Could hold all Heav'n and Earth in happier union.     XI     At last surrounds their sight     A globe of circular light,     That with long beams the shame faced night arrayed     The helmed Cherubim     And sworded Seraphim,     Are seen in glittering ranks with wings displaid,     Harping in loud and solemn quire,     With unexpressive notes to Heav'ns new-born Heir.     XII     Such Musick (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-ballanc't world on hinges hung,     And cast the dark foundations deep,     And bid the weltring waves their oozy channel keep.     XIII     Ring out ye Crystall sphears,     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 Heav'ns deep Organ blow,     And with your ninefold harmony     Make up full consort to th'Angelike symphony.     XIV     For if such holy Song     Enwrap our fancy long,     Time will run back, and fetch the age of gold,     And speckl'd vanity     Will sicken soon and die,     And leprous sin will melt from earthly mould,     And Hell it self will pass away     And leave her dolorous mansions to the peering day.     XV     Yea Truth, and Justice then     Will down return to men,     Th'enameld Arras of the Rain-bow wearing,     And Mercy set between     Thron'd in Celestiall sheen,     With radiant feet the tissued clouds down stearing,     And Heav'n as at som festivall,     Will open wide the gates of her high Palace Hall.     XVI     But wisest Fate sayes    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 glorifie:     Yet first to those ychain'd in sleep,     The Wakeful trump of doom must thunder through the deep,     XVII     With such a horrid clang     As on Mount Sinai rang     While the red fire, and smouldring clouds out brake:     The aged Earth agast     With terrour of that blast,     Shall from the surface to the center shake;     When at the worlds last session,     The dreadfull Judge in middle Air shall spread his throne.     XVIII     And then at last    our bliss     Full and perfect is,     But now begins; for from this happy day     Th'old Dragon under ground     In straiter limits bound,     Not half so far casts his usurped sway,     And wrath to see his Kingdom fail,     Swindges the scaly Horrour of his foulded tail.     XIX     The Oracles are dumm,     No voice or hideous humm     Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving.     Apollo from his shrine     Can no more divine,     With hollow shreik the steep of Delphos leaving.     No nightly trance, or breathed spell,     Inspire's the pale-ey'd Priest from the prophetic cell.     XX     The lonely mountains o're,     And the resounding shore,     A voice of weeping heard, and loud lament;     From haunted spring, and dale     Edg'd with poplar pale     The parting Genius is with sighing sent,     With flowre-inwov'n tresses torn     The Nimphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn.     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 Flamins at their service quaint;     And the chill Marble seems to sweat,     While each peculiar power forgoes his wonted seat.     XXII     Peor, and Baalim,     Forsake their Temples dim,     With that twise-batter'd god of Palestine,     And mooned Ashtaroth,     Heav'ns Queen and Mother both,     Now sits not girt with Tapers holy shine,     The Libyc Hammon shrinks his horn,     In vain the Tyrian Maids their wounded Thamuz mourn.     XXIII     And sullen Moloch fled,     Hath left in shadows dred,     His burning Idol all of blackest hue,     In vain with Cymbals ring,     They call the grisly king,     In dismall dance about the furnace Blue;     And Brutish gods of Nile as fast,     lsis and Orus, and the Dog Anubis hast.