Yet to their General's voice they soon obey'd,
Innumerable. As when the potent rod
Of Amram's son,1 in Egypt's evil day,
Wav'd round the coast, upcall'd a pitchy cloud
Of locusts, warping on the eastern wind,
That o'er the realm of impious Pharaoh hung
Like night, and darken'd all the land of Nile:
So numberless were those bad Angels seen
Hovering on wing under the cope of Hell,
"Twixt upper, nether, and surrounding fires;
Till, as a signal given, the uplifted spear
Of their great Sultan waving to direct
Their course, in even balance down they light
On the firm brimstone, and fill all the plain ;
A multitude, like which the populous North
Pour'd never from her frozen loins, to pass
Rhene or the Danaw, when her barbarous sons
Came like a deluge on the South, and spread
Beneath Gibraltar to the Lybian sands.
Forthwith from every squadron and each band,
The heads and leaders thither haste, where stood
Their great Commander; Godlike shapes and forms
Excelling human; princely Dignities

And Powers that erst in Heaven sat on thrones;
Though of their names in heavenly records now
Be no memorial; blotted out and ras'd
By their rebellion from the books of life.
Nor had they yet among the sons of Eve

Got them new names; till wandering o'er the earth,
Through God's high sufferance, for the trial of man,
By falsities and lies, the greatest part
Of mankind they corrupted to forsake
God their Creator, and the invisible

''Amram's son:' Moses.

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Glory of him that made them to transform
Oft to the image of a brute, adorn'd

With gay religions, full of pomp and gold,
And Devils to adore for Deities:

Then were they known to men by various names,
And various idols through the Heathen world.

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880

Say, Muse, their names then known; who first, who last, Rous'd from the slumber, on that fiery couch, At their great Emperour's call, as next in worth Came singly where he stood on the bare strand, While the promiscuous crowd stood yet aloof. The chief were those, who, from the pit of Hell Roaming to seek their prey on earth, durst fix Their seats long after next the seat of God, Their altars by his altar; gods ador'd Among the nations round; and durst abide Jehovah thundering out of Sion, thron'd Between the Cherubim ; yea, often plac'd Within his sanctuary itself their shrines, Abominations; and with cursed things His holy rites and solemn feasts profan'd, And with their darkness durst affront his light. First, Moloch,1 horrid king, besmear'd with blood Of human sacrifice, and parents' tears;

830

Though, for the noise of drums and timbrels loud,
Their children's cries unheard, that pass'd through fire
To his grim idol. Him the Ammonite

Worshipp'd in Rabba and her watery plain,
In Argob and in Basan, to the stream
Of utmost Arnon; nor content with such
Audacious neighbourhood, the wisest heart
Of Solomon he led by fraud to build

400

Moloch' god of the Ammonites, by some supposed identical with the

Mars of the Greeks.

His temple right against the temple of God
On that opprobrious hill; and made his grove
The pleasant valley of Hinnom, Tophet thence
And black Gehenna call'd, the type of Hell.
Next Chemos,1 the óbscene dread of Moab's sons,
From Aroer to Nebo, and the wild

Of southmost Abarim; in Hesebon
And Horonaim, Seon's realm, beyond

The flow'ry dale of Sibma clad with vines;
And Eleälé2 to the Asphaltic pool :3
Peor his other name, when he entic'd
Israel in Sittim, on their march from Nile,
To do him wanton rites, which cost them woe.
Yet thence his lustful orgies he enlarg'd
Even to that hill of scandal, by the grove
Of Moloch homicide; lust hard by hate;
Till good Josiah drove them thence to Hell.
With these came they, who, from the bordering flood
Of old Euphrates to the brook that parts 5
Egypt from Syrian ground, had general names
Of Baälim and Ashtaroth; those male,

These feminine: For Spirits, when they please,
Can either sex assume, or both; so soft
And uncompounded is their essence pure;
Not tied or manacled with joint or limb,

Nor founded on the brittle strength of bones,

402

Like cumbrous flesh; but, in what shape they choose, Dilated or condens'd, bright or obscure,

Can execute their aery purposes,

And works of love or enmity fulfil.

For those the race of Israel oft forsook

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Chemos:' idol of Moabites. Aroer,' 'Nebo,' 'Hesebon,' 'Sibma,' 'Eleälé,' &c.; all cities of Moab.-Asphaltic pool:' the Dead Sea, so called from the asphaltus or bitumen in it.-Peor:' Baal Peor.-The brook that parts:' the brook Besor.

Their Living Strength, and unfrequented left
His righteous altar, bowing lowly down

To bestial gods; for which their heads as low
Bow'd down in battle, sunk before the spear
Of despicable foes. With these in troop
Came Astoreth, whom the Phoenicians call'd
Astarte,1 queen of Heaven, with crescent horns;
To whose bright image nightly by the moon
Sidonian virgins paid their vows and songs;
In Sion also not unsung, where stood

Her temple on the offensive mountain,2 built
By that uxorious king, whose heart, though large,
Beguil'd by fair idolatresses, fell

To idols foul. Thammuz3 came next behind,
Whose annual wound in Lebanon allur'd
The Syrian damsels to lament his fate
In amorous ditties, all a summer's day;
While smooth Adonis4 from his native rock
Ran purple to the sea, suppos'd with blood
Of Thammuz yearly wounded: the love-tale
Infected Sion's daughters with like heat;
Whose wanton passions in the sacred porch
Ezekiel saw, when, by the vision led,

His

eye survey'd the dark idolatries

Of alienated Judah. Next came onc

Who mourn'd in earnest, when the captive ark
Maim'd his brute image, head and hands lopt off
In his own temple, on the grunsel edge,5
Where he fell flat, and sham'd his worshippers;
Dagon his name, sea-monster, upward man

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Astarte:' the moon.-2 Offensive mountain:' Mount of Olives.Thammuz' or Adonis, god of the Syrians, fabled to die and revive each Adonis:' the name of a river rising in Lebanon.- ' Grunsel edge:' edge of foot-post of his temple.

year.

B

And downward fish: yet had his temple high
Rear'd in Azotus, dreaded through the coast
Of Palestine, in Gath, and Ascalon,
And Accaron and Gaza's frontier bounds.
Him follow'd Rimmon,1 whose delightful seat
Was fair Damascus, on the fertile banks
Of Abbana and Pharphar, lucid streams.
He also 'gainst the house of God was bold:
A leper once he lost, and gain'd a king;
Ahaz, his sottish conquerour, whom he drew
God's altar to disparage, and displace,
For one of Syrian mould, whereon to burn
His odious offerings, and adore the gods
Whom he had vanquish'd. After these appear'd
A crew, who, under names of old renown,
Osiris, Isis, Orus,2 and their train,

With monstrous shapes and sorceries abus'd
Fanatic Egypt and her priests, to seek
Their wandering gods disguis'd in brutish forms
Rather than human. Nor did Israel 'scape
The infection, when their borrow'd gold compos'd
The calf in Oreb; and the rebel king

Doubled that sin in Bethel, and in Dan,
Lik'ning his Maker to the grazed ox;
Jehovah, who, in one night, when he pass'd
From Egypt marching, equall'd with one stroke
Both her first-born and all her bleating gods.
Belial came last, than whom a Spirit more lewd
Fell not from Heaven, or more gross to love
Vice for itself to him no temple stood
Or altar smok'd; yet who more oft than he

1 Rimmon:' god of Syrians.-Orus:' son of Osiris and Isis. It was fabled that when the giants invaded heaven, the gods concealed themselves in Egypt in the forms of various animals.