Not Typhon huge ending in fnaky twine: Our babe, to show his Godhead true,

Can in his fwadling bands controll the damned crew.

XXVI.

So when the fun in bed,

Curtain'd with cloudy red,

Pillows his chin upon an orient wave,

The flocking fhadows pale

Troop to th' infernal jail,

Each fetter'd ghoft flips to his feveral grave; And the yellow-fkirted Fayes

230

235

Fly after the night-fteeds, leaving their moon-lov'd

maze.

XXVII.

But fee the Virgin bleft

Hath laid her Babe to rest,

Time is our tedious fong fhould here have ending:

229. See Note on PAR. REG. iv. 426.

231. Pillows his chin upon an orient wave.] The words pillows and chin, throw an air of burlesque and familiarity over a comparifon moft exquifitely conceived and adapted.

232. The flocking fhadows pale

Troop to th' infernal jail,

Each fetter'd ghoft flips to his feveral grave.] Mr. Bowle

here directs us to the MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DR. A. iii. S. ult.

And yonder shines Aurora's harbinger;

At whofe approach, ghofts wandering here and there,

TROOP home to churchyards: damned spirits all

That in cross-ways and floods have burial,

Already in their wormy beds are gone.

235. And the yellow-fkirted Fayes

Fly after the night-feeds, leaving their moon-lov'd maze.] It is a very poetical mode of expreffing the departure of the fairies at the approach of morning, to say that they "fly after the steeds " of Night."

VOL. I.

N n

Heav'n's

Heav'n's youngest teemed star

Hath fix'd her polish'd car,

240

Her fleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending: And all about the courtly stable

Bright-harnest Angels fit in order ferviceable.*

E

THE PASSION.

I.

REWHILE of mufic, and ethereal mirth,

Wherewith the ftage of air and earth did ring,

And joyous news of heav'nly Infant's birth,

My Mufe with Angels did divide to fing;

But headlong joy is ever on the wing,

5

* PARADISE REGAINED was tranflated into French, and printed at Paris 1730. To which the tranflator has added LyCIDAS, L'ALLEGRO, IL PENSEROSO, and this ODE ON THE NATIVITY. But the French have no conception of the nature and complexion of Milton's imagery.

A great critic, in fpeaking of Milton's fmaller poems, paffes over this Ode in filence, and obferves "All that fhort compofi"tions can commonly attain is neatness and elegance." But ODES are fhort compofitions, and they can often attain fublimity, which is even a characteristic of that fpecies of poetry. We have the proof before us. He adds, "Milton never learned the art of "doing little things with grace." If by little things we are to understand short poems, Milton had the art of giving them another fort of excellence.

1. Erewhile of mufic and ethereal mirth.] Hence we may conjecture that this Ode was probably compofed foon after that on the NATIVITY. And this perhaps was a college exercise at Eafter, as the laft at Christmas.

4. My Mufe with Angels did divide to fing.] See Spenfer, F. Q. iii. i. 40.

And all the while fweet mufic did DIVIDE

Her loofer notes with Lydian harmony.

As Horace, "Imbelli cithara carmina DIVIDES. Od. i. xv. 15. Which Voffius, with his ufual refinement, and to justify a new fenfe of his text, explains by ALTERNATE finging. In CATULL.

p. 239.

In wintry folftice like the fhorten'd light

Soon fwallow'd up in dark and long out-living night.

II.

For now to forrow must I tune my fong,

And fet my harp to notes of faddeft woe,

ΤΟ

Which on our deareft Lord did feise ere long, Dangers, and fnares, and wrongs, and worse than fo, Which he for us did freely undergo:

Most perfect Hero, try'd in heaviest plight

Of labours huge and hard, too hard for human

'wight!

III.

He fov'ran priest stooping his regal head,
That dropt with odorous oil down his fair eyes,
Poor fleshy tabernacle entered,

His ftarry front low-rooft beneath the skies:
O what a mask was there, what a difguife!

15

19

p. 239. edit. 1684. Compare Seneca, HERCULES. OET. V. 1080. "Orpheus carmina DIVIDENS." Spenfer might be mentioned, i. v. 17...

Another paffage in

And all the while moft heavenly melody
About the bed fweet muficke did DIVIDE.

Again, he fays, that in the preceding Ode" his Mufe with ANGELS did DIVIDE to fing." That is, perhaps, because she then "joined her voice to the ANGEL-QUIRE," as at v. 27. I know not if the technical term to run a divifion is here appli cable. Shakespeare fays, Roм. JUL. A. iii. S. v.

It is the lark that fings fo out of tune,
Straining harsh difcords, and unpleafing sharps;
Some fay the lark makes sweet DIVISION.

Compare HENR. iv. A. iii. S. i.

Sung by a fair queen in a fummer's bower,
With ravishing DIVISION to her lute,

And Reed's Old PL. viii. 373. 412.

5. But beadlong joy is ever on the wing.] An elegant and expreffive line. But Drayton more poetically calls joy,

The fwallow-winged Joy.
Nn 2

Yet

Yet more; the ftroke of death he must abide, Then lies him meekly down faft by his brethrens

fide.

IV.

These latest scenes confine my roving verse,
To this horifon is my Phoebus bound;
His god-like acts, and his temptations fierce,
And former sufferings other where are found;
Loud o'er the reft Cremona's trump doth found;
Me fofter airs befit, and fofter strings

25

Of lute, or viol ftill, more apt for mournful things.

V.

Befriend me, Night, best patronefs of grief,
Over the pole thy thickeft mantle throw,
And work my flatter'd fancy to belief,

22. So edit. 1673. These later, 1645.

30

26. Loud o'er the reft Cremona's trump.-] Our poet feems here to be of opinion, that Vida's CHRISTIAD was the finest Latin poem on a religious fubject; but perhaps it is excelled by Sannazarius De PARTU VIRGINIS, a poem of more vigour and fire than this work of Vida. Dr. J. WARTON.

28. Of lute, or viol fill.] Gentle, not noify, not loud, as is the trumpet. It is applied to found in the fame fenfe, B. KINGS, i. 19. 12. "A STILL fmall voice." And in FIRST P

HENR. V. A. iv. S. i.

The hum of either army STILLY founds.

And in IL PENS. V. 127.

Or usher'd with a fhower STILL.

This is in oppofition to winds piping LOUD, in the verfe before. Its application is not often to found. Hence ftill-born, of a child born dead.

30. Over the pole thy thickest mantle throw.] PARAD. L. iv, 609.

And o'er the dark her filver MANTLE THREW.

As Mr. Steevens fuggefts. And in Buckhurst's INDUCTION, as Mr. Bowle obferves, ft. iv.

That Heaven and Earth are colour'd with my woe; My forrows are too dark for day to know:

The leaves fhould all be black where on I write,

And letters where my tears have wash'd a wannish white.

VI.

See, see the chariot, and those rushing wheels,
That whirld the Prophet up at Chebar flood;
My spirit fome transporting Cherub feels,
To bear me where the tow'rs of Salem ftood,
Once glorious tow'rs now funk in guiltlefs blood;
There doth my foul in holy vifion fit
In penfive trance, and anguish, and ecstatic fit.

VII.

Mine eye hath found that fad fepulchral rock
That was the cafket of Heav'n's richest store,
And here though grief my feeble hands up lock,
Yet on the foften'd quarry would I score

Again, ft. xl,

-Let the Nightes black miftye MANTELS rife.

41

46

34. Conceits were now confined not to words only. Mr. Steevens has a Volume of ELEGIES, in which the paper is black, and the letters white; that is, in all the title-pages. Every intermediate leaf is alfo black. What a fudden change from this childish idea, to the noble apoftrophe, the fublime rapture and imagination of the next stanxa.

42. This is to be held in holy paffion, as in IL PENS. v. 41.

43. Mine eye bath found that fad fepulchral rock
That was the casket of Heav'n's richest ftore,
And here though grief my feeble hands uplock,
Yet on the foften'd quarry would I fcore

My plaining verfe] He feems to have been ftruck with reading Sandys's description of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerufalem; and to have catched fympathetically Sandys's fudden impulfe to break forth into a devout fong at the aweful and inspiring fpectacle." It is a frozen zeal that will not be warmed at

" the