MINOR POEMS OF MILTON.

ON THE MORNING OF CHRIST'S NATIVITY.

I.

THIS is the month and this the happy morn,
Wherein the Son of Heaven's eternal King,1
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,2
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 Heaven'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.

5

10

III.

*

Say, Heavenly 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 heaven, by the Sun's team2 untrod,
Hath took no print of the approaching light,

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20

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 touched with hallowed fire.

While the Heaven-born Child

All meanly wrapped in the rude manger lies; Nature in awe to him

Had doffed 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.

1 36.

2 38, 21.

* P. L. I. 6.

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30

35

"See how from far upon the eastern road

The star-led wizards haste with odours sweet."

Hymn on the Nativity, 22+.

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.

But he, her fears to cease,

III.

Sent down the meek-eyed Peace;

She, crowned with olive green, came softly sliding Down through the turning sphere,1

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

Unstained with hostile blood,

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45

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55

The trumpet spake not to the armèd throng;

And kings sat still with awful eye,

As if they surely knew their sovran Lord was by.

60

19, 10.