As mock'd they storm: great laughte: was in Heaven, And looking down, to see the hubbub strange, And hear the din: thus was the building left Ridiculous, and the work Confusion named. Whereto thus Adam, fatherly displeased: O execrable son! so to aspire Above his brethren; to himself assuming Authority usurp'd, from God not given: He gave us only over beast, fish, fowl, Dominion absolute; that right we hold By his donation; but man over men He made not lord; such title to himself Reserving, human left from human free. But this usurper his encroachment proud Stays not on Man; to God his tower intends Siege and defiance: wretched man! what food Will he convey up thither, to sustain Himself and his rash army; where thin air Above the clouds will pine his entrails gross, And famish him of breath, if not of bread?
To whom thus Michaël: Justly thou abhorr'st That son, who on the quiet state of men Such trouble brought, affecting to subdue Rational liberty; yet know withal,
Since thy original lapse, true liberty
Is lost, which always with right reason dwells Twinn'd, and from her hath no dividual being: Reason in man obscured or not obey'd,
Immediately inordinate desires
And upstart passions catch the government
From reason; and to servitude reduce
Man, till then free. Therefore, since he permits 90 Within himself unworthy powers to reign Over free reason, God, in judgment just, Subjects him from without to violent lords; Who oft as undeservedly enthral His outward freedom: tyranny must be ; Though to the tyrant thereby no excuse.
Yet sometimes nations will decline so low From virtue, which is reason, that no wrong, But justice and some fatal curse annex'd, Deprives them of their outward liberty;
Their inward lost witness the irreverent son Of him who built the ark; who, for the shame Done to his father, heard this heavy curse,
Servant of servants, on his vicious race.
Thus will this latter, as the former world,
Still tend from bad to worse; till God at last, Wearied with their iniquities, withdraw His presence from among them, and avert His holy eyes; resolving from thenceforth To leave them to their own polluted ways; And one peculiar nation to select From all the rest, of whom to be invoked, A nation from one faithful man to spring: Him on this side Euphrates yet residing, Bred up in idol-worship: O, that men (Canst thou believe?) should be so stupid grown, While yet the patriarch lived who scaped the flood, As to forsake the living God, and fall
To worship their own work in wood and stone
For Gods! Yet him God the Most High vouchsafes To call by vision, from his father's house, His kindred, and false Gods, into a land Which he will show him; and from him will raise A mighty nation; and upon him shower His benediction so that in his seed
All nations shall be bless'd: he straight obeys;
Not knowing to what land, yet firm believes : I see him, but thou canst not, with what faith
He leaves his Gods, his friends, and native soil, Ur of Chaldea, passing now the ford To Haran; after him a cumbrous train Of herds and flocks, and numerous servitude;
Not wandering poor, but trusting all his wealth With God, who call'd him, in a land unknown.
Canaan he now attains; I see his tents Pitch'd about Sechem, and the neighbouring plain Of Moreh; there by promise he receives Gift to his progeny of all that land,
From Hamath northward to the Desert south (Things by their names I call, thou yet unnamed ;) From Hermon east to the great western Sea; Mount Hermon, yonder sea; each place behold In prospect, as I point them; on the shore Mount Carmel; here, the double-founted stream, Jordan, true limit eastward; but his sons Shall dwell to Senir, that long ridge of hills. This ponder, that all nations of the earth Shall in his seed be blessed by that seed
Is meant thy great Deliverer, who shall bruise The Serpent's head; whereof to thee anon Plainlier shall be reveal'd. This patriarch bless'd, Whom faithful Abraham due time shall call, A son, and of his son a grandchild, leaves; Like him in faith, in wisdom, and renown:
The grandchild, with twelve sons increased, departs From Canaan, to a land hereafter call'd Egypt, divided by the river Nile ; `
See where it flows, disgorging at seven mouths
Into the sea to sojourn in that land
He comes, invited by a younger son
In time of dearth; a son, whose worthy deeds
Raise him to be the second in that realm
Of Pharaoh there he dies, and leaves his race Growing into a nation, and now grown Suspected to a sequent king, who seeks
To stop their overgrowth, as inmate guests
Inhospitably, and kills their infant males:
Too numerous; whence of guests he makes them slaves
Till by two brethren (these two brethren call'd Moses and Aaron) sent from God to claim His people from enthralment, they return, With glory and spoil, back to their promised land.
But first, the lawless tyrant, who denies
To know their God, or message to regard,
Must be compell'd by signs and judgments dire; 175 To blood ushed the rivers must be turn'd; Frogs, lice, and flies must all his palace fill With loathed intrusion, and fill all the land; His cattle must of rot and murrain die ; Botches and blains must all his flesh emboss, And all his people; thunder mix'd with hail, Hail mix'd with fire, must rend the Egyptian sky, And wheel on the earth, devouring where it rolls; What it devours not, herb, or fruit, or grain, A darksome cloud of locusts swarming down Must eat, and on the ground leave nothing green; Darkness must overshadow all his bounds, Palpable darkness, and blot out three days; Last, with one midnight stroke, all the first-born Of Egypt must lie dead. Thus with ten wounds 190 The river-dragon tamed at length submits
To let his sojourners depart, and oft
Humbles his stubborn heart; but still, as ice
More harden'd after thaw; till, in his rage
Pursuing whom he late dismiss'd, the sea
Swallows him with his host; but them lets pass,
As on dry land, between two crystal walls;
Awed by the rod of Moses so to stand
Divided, till his rescued gain their shore:
Such wondrous power God to his saint will lend, 200 Though present in his Angel; who shall go
Before them in a cloud, and pillar of fire;
By day a cloud, by night a pillar of fire;
To guide them in their journey, and remove
Behind them, while the obdurate king pursues : 205 All night he will pursue; but his approach Darkness defends between till morning watch; Then through the fiery pillar, and the cloud, God looking forth will trouble all his host,
And craze their chariot-wheels: when by command
Moses once more his potent rod extends Over the sea; the sea his rod obeys;
On their embattled ranks the waves return, And overwhelm their war: the race elect
Safe towards Canaan from the shore advance
Through the wild Desert, not the readiest way; Lest, entering on the Canaanite alarm'd,
War terrify them inexpert, and fear
Return them back to Egypt, choosing rather
Inglorious life with servitude; for life
To noble and ignoble is more sweet
Untrain'd in arms, where rashness leads not on. This also shall they gain by their delay
In the wide wilderness; there they shall found
Their government, and their great senate choose 225 Through the twelve tribes, to rule by laws ordain'd; God from the mount of Sinai, whose gray top Shall tremble, he descending, will himself
In thunder, lightning, and loud trumpets' sound, Ordain them laws; part, such as appertain
To civil justice; part, religious rites Of sacrifice; informing them, by types
And shadows, of that destined Seed to bruise The Serpent, by what means he shall achieve Mankind's deliverance. But the voice of God To mortal ear is dreadful: they beseech That Moses might report to them his will,
And terror cease; he grants what they besought, Instructed that to God is no access
Without Mediator, whose high office now
Moses in figure bears; to introduce
One greater, of whose day he shall foretel,
And all the Prophets in their age the times
Of great Messiah shall sing. Thus, laws and rites Establish'd, such delight hath God in men Obedient to his will, that he vouchsafes Among them to set up his tabernacle ; The Holy One with mortal men to dwell:
« AnteriorContinua » |