I

  This is the month, and this the happy morn,
  Wherein the Son of Heav'n's 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,
  Wherewith he wont at Heav'n's high council-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 darksome house of mortal clay.

III

  Say Heav'nly Muse, shall not thy sacred vein
  Afford a present to the Infant God?
  Hast thou no verse, no hymn, or solemn strain,
  To welcome him to this his new abode,
  Now while the heav'n, by the Sun's team untrod,
  Hath took no print of the approaching light,
  And all the spangled host keep watch in squadrons bright?

IV

  See how from far upon the eastern road
  The star-led wizards 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 join thy voice unto the angel quire,
  From out his secret altar touch'd with hallow'd fire.

I

  It was the winter wild,
  While the Heav'n-born child,
  All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies;
  Nature in awe to him
  Had doff'd her gaudy 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 woos the gentle air
  To hide her guilty front with innocent snow,
  And on her naked shame,
  Pollute with sinful blame,
  The saintly veil of maiden white to throw,
  Confounded, that her Maker's eyes
  Should look so near upon her foul deformities.

III

  But he, her fears to cease,
  Sent down the meek-ey'd Peace:
  She, crown'd with olive green, came softly sliding
  Down through the turning sphere,
  His ready harbinger,
  With turtle wing the amorous clouds dividing;
  And waving wide her myrtle wand,
  She strikes a universal peace through sea and land.

IV

  No war or battle's sound
  Was heard the world around;
  The idle spear and shield were high uphung;
  The hooked chariot stood
  Unstain'd with hostile blood;
  The trumpet spake not to the armed throng;
  And kings sate still with awful eye,
  As if they surely knew their sovran Lord was by.

V

  But peaceful was the night
  Wherein the Prince of Light
  His reign of peace upon the earth began:
  The winds with wonder whist,
  Smoothly the waters kist,
  Whispering new joys to the mild 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 fix'd in steadfast gaze,
  Bending one way their precious influence;
  And will not take their flight,
  For all the morning light,
  Or Lucifer that often warn'd 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 withheld his wonted speed,
  And hid his head for shame,
  As his inferior flame
  The new-enlighten'd world no more should need:
  He saw a greater Sun appear
  Than his bright throne or burning axle-tree 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 come to live with them below:
  Perhaps their loves, or else their sheep,
  Was all that did their silly thoughts so busy keep;

IX

  When such music 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 blissful rapture took:
  The air such pleasure loth to lose,
  With thousand echoes 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 done,
  And that her reign 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-fac'd Night array'd;
  The helmed Cherubim
  And sworded Seraphim
  Are seen in glittering ranks with wings display'd,
  Harping in loud and solemn quire,
  With unexpressive notes to Heav'n's new-born Heir.

XII

  Such music (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-balanc'd world on hinges hung,
  And cast the dark foundations deep,
  And bid the welt'ring waves their oozy channel keep.

XIII

  Ring out ye crystal spheres!
  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 bass of Heav'n's deep organ blow;
  And with your ninefold harmony
  Make up full consort to th'angelic 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 itself will pass away,
  And leave her dolorous mansions to the peering Day.

XV

  Yea, Truth and Justice then
  Will down return to men,
  Orb'd in a rainbow; and, like glories wearing,
  Mercy will sit between,
  Thron'd in celestial sheen,
  With radiant feet the tissu'd clouds down steering;
  And Heav'n, as at some festival,
  Will open wide the gates of her high palace hall.

XVI

  But wisest Fate says 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 glorify:
  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 smould'ring clouds outbrake:
  The aged Earth, aghast
  With terror of that blast,
  Shall from the surface to the centre shake,
  When at the world's last session,
  The dreadful 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,
  Swinges the scaly horror of his folded tail.

XIX

  The Oracles are dumb;
  No voice or hideous hum
  Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving.
  Apollo from his shrine
  Can no more divine,
  With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving.
  No nightly trance or breathed spell
  Inspires the pale-ey'd priest from the prophetic cell.

XX

  The lonely mountains o'er,
  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 flow'r-inwoven tresses torn
  The Nymphs 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 flamens at their service quaint;
  And the chill marble seems to sweat,
  While each peculiar power forgoes his wonted seat.

XXII

  Peor and Ba{:a}lim
  Forsake their temples dim,
  With that twice-batter'd god of Palestine;
  And mooned Ashtaroth,
  Heav'n's 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 Thammuz mourn.

XXIII

  And sullen Moloch, fled,
  Hath left in shadows dread
  His burning idol all of blackest hue:
  In vain with cymbals' ring
  They call the grisly king,
  In dismal dance about the furnace blue.
  The brutish gods of Nile as fast,
  Isis and Orus, and the dog Anubis, haste.

XXIV

  Nor is Osiris seen
  In Memphian grove or green,
  Trampling the unshower'd grass with lowings loud;
  Nor can he be at rest
  Within his sacred chest,
  Naught but profoundest Hell can be his shroud:
  In vain with timbrel'd anthems dark
  The sable-stoled sorcerers bear his worshipp'd ark.

XXV

  He feels from Juda's land
  The dreaded Infant's hand,
  The rays of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyn;
  Nor all the gods beside
  Longer dare abide,
  Not Typhon huge ending in snaky twine:
  Our Babe, to show his Godhead true,
  Can in his swaddling bands control the damned crew.

XXVI

  So when the Sun in bed,
  Curtain'd with cloudy red,
  Pillows his chin upon an orient wave,
  The flocking shadows pale
  Troop to th'infernal jail,
  Each fetter'd ghost slips to his several grave,
  And the yellow-skirted fays
  Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-lov'd maze.

XXVII

  But see, the Virgin blest
  Hath laid her Babe to rest:
  Time is our tedious song should here have ending.
  Heav'n's youngest-teemed star,
  Hath fix'd her polish'd car,
  Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending;
  And all about the courtly stable,
  Bright-harness'd Angels sit in order serviceable.