I,
WHO erewhile the happy Garden
sung By one man's
disobedience
lost,
now sing Recovered Paradise
to all mankind,
By one man's firm
obedience fully
tried Through all temptation,
and the Tempter
foiled In all his wiles,
defeated and repulsed,
And Eden
raised in the waste Wilderness.
Thou Spirit,
who led'st
this glorious Eremite Into
the desert,
his victorious field Against
the spiritual foe,
and brought'st him
thence By proof
the undoubted Son
of God,
inspire,
As thou art wont,
my prompted song,
else mute,
And bear through highth
or depth of Nature's bounds,
With prosperous wing full summed,
to tell
of deeds Above heroic,
though in secret done,
And unrecorded
left through many an age:
Worthy to
have not
remained so long unsung.
Now had the great Proclaimer,
with a voice More awful
than the sound of trumpet,
cried Repentance,
and Heaven's kingdom nigh
at hand To all baptized.
To his great baptism
flocked With awe
the regions round,
and with them
came From Nazareth the son
of Joseph
deemed To the flood Jordan
--came as then obscure,
Unmarked,
unknown.
But him the Baptist
soon Descried,
divinely warned,
and witness bore As
to his worthier,
and would have resigned To
him his heavenly office.
Nor was long His witness
unconfirmed:
on him baptized Heaven opened,
and in likeness
of a Dove
The Spirit descended,
while the Father's
voice From Heaven
pronounced him his beloved Son.
That heard the Adversary,
who,
roving still About the world,
at that assembly
famed Would not
be last,
and,
with the voice
divine Nigh thunder-struck,
the exalted man
to whom Such high attest
was given a
while surveyed With wonder;
then,
with envy fraught and rage,
Flies to his place,
nor rests,
but in mid air
To council
summons all his mighty Peers,
Within thick clouds
and dark tenfold involved,
A gloomy consistory;
and them amidst,
With looks aghast and sad,
he thus bespake:-
-
"O ancient Powers of Air
and this wide World
(For much more willingly
I mention Air,
This our old conquest,
than remember Hell,
Our hated habitation),
well ye
know How many ages,
as the years of men,
This Universe we have possessed,
and ruled In manner
at our
will the affairs of Earth,
Since Adam and his facile
consort Eve Lost Paradise,
deceived by me,
though since With dread attending
when that fatal wound Shall
be inflicted
by the seed
of Eve Upon my head.
Long the decrees
of Heaven Delay,
for longest time to Him
is short;
And now,
too soon for us,
the circling hours This
dreaded time
have compassed,
wherein we Must bide
the stroke of
that long-threatened wound
(At least,
if so we can,
and by the head Broken
be not
intended all our power To
be infringed,
our freedom and our
being In this fair empire
won of Earth and Air)
--
For this ill news
I bring: The Woman's Seed,
Destined to this,
is late of woman born.
His birth to our
just fear
gave no small cause;
But his growth
now to youth's full flower,
displaying All virtue,
grace and wisdom
to achieve Things highest,
greatest,
multiplies my fear.
Before him a great Prophet,
to proclaim His coming,
is sent harbinger,
who all Invites,
and in the consecrated
stream Pretends
to wash off sin,
and fit them so Purified
to receive him pure,
or rather To
do him honour
as their King.
All come,
And he himself among them
was baptized
-- Not thence
to be more pure,
but to receive The testimony
of Heaven,
that who
he is Thenceforth the nations
may not doubt.
I saw The Prophet
do him reverence;