Classic Poem

IN THE GLORIOUS EPIPHANIE OF OUR LORD GOD, A HYMN. SUNG AS BY THE THREE KINGS

(1. Kinge.) Bright Babe ! Whose awfull beautyes make
The morn incurr a sweet mistake;
(2.) For whom the'officious heavns devise
To disinheritt the sun's rise,
(3.) Delicately to displace
The Day, and plant it fairer in thy face;
(1.) O thou born King of loves,
(2.) Of lights,
(3.) Of joyes!
( Cho. ) Look up, sweet Babe , look up and see
For love of Thee
Thus farr from home
The E AST is come
To seek her self in thy sweet Eyes.
(1.) We, who strangely went astray,
Lost in a bright
Meridian night,
(2.) A Darkenes made of too much day,
(3.) Becken'd from farr
By thy fair starr,
Lo at last have found our way.
( Cho. ) To T HEE , thou D AY of night! thou east of west!
Lo we at last have found the way.
To thee, the world's great universal east.
The Generall and indifferent D AY .
(1.) All-circling point. All centring sphear.
The world's one, round, Æternall year.
(2.) Whose full and all-unwrinkled face
Nor sinks nor swells with time or place;
(3.) But every where and every while
Is One Consistent solid smile;
(1.) Not vext and tost
(2.) 'Twixt spring and frost,
(3.) Nor by alternate shredds of light
Sordidly shifting hands with shades and night.
( Cho. ) O little all! in thy embrace
The world lyes warm, and likes his place.
Nor does his full Globe fail to be
Kist on Both his cheeks by Thee.
Time is too narrow for thy Y EAR
Nor makes the whole W ORLD thy half-sphear.
(1.) To Thee, to Thee
From him we flee
(2.) From H IM , whom by a more illustrious ly,
The blindnes of the world did call the eye;
(3.) To H IM , who by These mortall clouds hast made
Thy self our sun, though thine own shade.
(1.) Farewell, the world's false light.
Farewell, the white
Ægypt! a long farewell to thee
Bright I DOL ; black I DOLATRY .
The dire face of inferior D ARKNES , kis't
And courted in the pompous mask of a more specious mist.
(2.) Farewell, farewell
The proud and misplac't gates of hell,
Pertch't, in the morning's way
And double-guilded as the doores of D AY .
The deep hypocrisy of D EATH and N IGHT
More desperately dark, Because more bright.
(3.) Welcome, the world's sure Way!
H EAVN 's wholsom ray.
( Cho. ) Wellcome to us; and we
(S WEET ) to our selves, in T HEE .
(1.) The deathles H EIR of all thy F ATHER'S day!
(2.) Decently Born.
Embosom'd in a much more Rosy M ORN ,
The Blushes of thy All-unblemish't mother.
(3.) No more that other
Aurora shall sett ope
Her ruby casements, or hereafter hope
From mortall eyes
To meet Religious welcomes at her rise.
( Cho. ) We (Pretious ones!) in you have won
A gentler M ORN , a juster sun.
(1.) His superficiall Beames sun-burn't our skin;
(2.) But left within
(3.) The night and winter still of death and sin.
( Cho. ) Thy softer yet more certaine D ARTS
Spare our eyes, but peirce our H ARTS .
(1.) Therefore with H IS proud persian spoiles
(2.) We court thy more concerning smiles.
(3.) Therfore with his Disgrace
We guild the humble cheek of this chast place;
( Cho. ) And at thy Feet powr forth his Face .
(1.) The doating nations now no more
Shall any day but T HINE adore.
(2.) Nor (much lesse) shall they leave these eyes
For cheap Ægyptian Deityes.
(3.) In whatsoe're more Sacred shape
Of Ram, He-goat, or reverend ape,
Those beauteous ravishers opprest so sore
The too-hard-tempted nations.
(1.) Never more
By wanton heyfer shall be worn
(2.) A Garland, or a guilded horn.
The altar-stall'd ox, fatt O SYRIS now
With his fair sister cow,
(3.) Shall kick the clouds no more; But lean and tame,
( Cho. ) See his horn'd face, and dy for shame.
And M ITHRA now shall be no name.
(1.) No longer shall the immodest lust
Of Adulterous G ODLES dust
(2.) Fly in the face of heav'n; As if it were
The poor world's Fault that he is fair.
(3.) Nor with perverse loves and Religious R APES
Revenge thy Bountyes in their beauteous shapes;
And punish Best Things worst; Because they stood
Guilty of being much for them too Good.
(1.) Proud sons of death! that durst compell
Heav'n it self to find them hell;
(2.) And by strange witt of madnes wrest
From this world's E AST the other's W EST .
(3.) All-Idolizing wormes! that thus could crowd
And urge Their sun into thy cloud;
Forcing his sometimes eclips'd face to be
A long deliquium to the light of thee.
( Cho. ) Alas with how much heavyer shade
The shamefac't lamp hung down his head
For that one eclipse he made
Then all those he suffered!
(1.) For this he look't so bigg; and every morn
With a red face confes't his scorn.
Or hiding his vex't cheeks in a hir'd mist
Kept them from being so unkindly kis't.
(2.) It was for this the day did rise
So oft with blubber'd eyes.
For this the evening wept; and we ne'er knew
But call'd it deaw.
(3.) This dayly wrong
Silenc't the morning-sons, and damp't their song
( Cho. ) Nor was't our deafnes, but our sins, that thus
Long made th'Harmonious orbes all mute to us.
(1.) Time has a day in store
When this so proudly poor
And self-oppressed spark, that has so long
By the love-sick world bin made
Not so much their sun as S HADE ,
Weary of this Glorious wrong
From them and from himself shall flee
For shelter to the shadow of thy T REE ;
( Cho. ) Proud to have gain'd this pretious losse
And chang'd his false crown for thy C ROSSE .
(2.) That dark Day's clear doom shall define
Whose is the Master F IRE , which sun should shine.
That sable Judgment-seat shall by new lawes
Decide and settle the Great cause
Of controverted light,
( Cho. ) And natur's wrongs rejoyce to doe thee Right.
(3.) That forfeiture of noon to night shall pay
All the idolatrous thefts done by this night of day;
And the Great Penitent presse his own pale lipps
With an elaborate love-eclipse
To which the low world's lawes
Shall lend no cause
( Cho. ) Save those domestick which he borrowes
From our sins and his own sorrowes.
(1.) Three sad hour's sackcloth then shall show to us
His penance, as our fault, conspicuous.
(2.) And he more needfully and nobly prove
The nations' terror now then erst their love.
(3.) Their hated loves changd into wholsom feares,
( Cho. ) The shutting of his eye shall open Theirs.
(1.) As by a fair-ey'd fallacy of day
Mis-ledde before they lost their way,
So shall they, by the seasonable fright
Of an unseasonable night,
Loosing it once again, stumble'on true L IGHT
(2.) And as before his too-bright eye
Was Their more blind idolatry,
So his officious blindnes now shall be
Their black, but faithfull perspective of thee;
(3.) His new prodigious night,
Their new and admirable light;
The supernaturall D AWN of Thy pure day.
While wondring they
(The happy converts now of him
Whom they compell'd before to be their sin)
Shall henceforth see
To kisse him only as their rod
Whom they so long courted as G OD ,
( Cho. ) And their best use of him they worship't be
To learn of Him at lest, to worship Thee.
(1.) It was their Weaknes woo'd his beauty;
But it shall be
Their wisdome now, as well as duty,
To'injoy his Blott; and as a large black letter
Use it to spell Thy beautyes better;
And make the night it self their torch to thee.
(2.) By the oblique ambush of this close night
Couch't in that conscious shade
The right-ey'd Areopagite
Shall with a vigorous guesse invade
And catche thy quick reflex; and sharply see
On this dark Ground
To descant T HEE .
(3.) O prize of the rich S PIRIT ! with what feirce chase
Of his strong soul, shall he
Leap at thy lofty Face ,
And seize the swift Flash, in rebound
From this obsequious cloud;
Once call'd a sun;
Till dearly thus undone,
( Cho. ) Till thus triumphantly tam'd (o ye two
Twinne S UNNES !) and taught now to negotiate you.
(1.) Thus shall that reverend child of light,
(2.) By being scholler first of that new night,
Come forth Great master of the mystick day;
(3.) And teach obscure M ANKIND a more close way
By the frugall negative light
Of a most wise and well-abused Night
To read more legible thine originall Ray,
( Cho. ) And make our Darknes serve T HY day;
Maintaining t'wixt thy world and ours
A commerce of contrary powres,
A mutuall trade
'Twixt sun and S HADE ,
By confederat B LACK and W HITE
Borrowing day and lending night.
(1.) Thus we, who when with all the noble powres
That (at thy cost) are call'd, not vainly, ours
We vow to make brave way
Upwards, and presse on for the pure intelligentiall Prey;
(2.) At lest to play
The amorous Spyes
And peep and proffer at thy sparkling Throne;
(3.) In stead of bringing in the blissfull P RIZE
And fastening on Thine eyes,
Forfeit our own
And nothing gain
But more Ambitious losse, at lest of brain;
( Cho. ) Now by abased liddes shall learn to be
Eagles; and shutt our eyes that we may see.

The Close.

Therfore to T HEE and thine Auspitious ray
(Dread sweet!) lo thus
At lest by us,
The delegated E YE of D AY
Does first his Scepter, then H IMSELF in solemne Tribute pay.
Thus he undresses
His sacred unshorn treses;
At thy adored Feet , thus, he layes down
(1.) His gorgeous tire
Of flame and fire,
(2.) His glittering R OBE , (3.) his sparkling C ROWN ,
(1.) His G OLD , (2.) his M IRRH , (3.) his F RANKINCENCE ,
( Cho. ) To which He now has no pretence.
For being show'd by this day's light, how farr
He is from sun enough to make T HY starr,
His best ambition now, is but to be
Somthing a brighter S HADOW (sweet) of thee.
Or on heavn's azure forhead high to stand
Thy golden index; with a duteous Hand
Pointing us Home to our own sun
The world's and his H YPERION .