Happy New Year!

Walter Crane, A Masque for the Four Seasons (1909)

Wisdom from the Bhagavad Gita 41

Sanjaya said:

9. Having thus spoken, O King, Hari, the Great Lord of Yoga, showed unto the son of Prithâ, His Supreme Ishvara-Form—

10. With numerous mouths and eyes, with numerous wondrous sights, with numerous celestial ornaments, with numerous celestial weapons uplifted;

11. Wearing celestial garlands and apparel, anointed with celestial-scented unguents, the All-wonderful, Resplendent, Boundless and All-formed.

12. If the splendor of a thousand suns were to rise up at once in the sky, that would be like the splendor of that Mighty Being.

13. There in the body of the God of gods, the son of Pându then saw the whole Universe resting in one, with its manifold divisions.

14. Then Dhananjaya, filled with wonder, with his hair standing on end, bending down his head to the Deva in adoration, spoke with joined palms.

Arjuna said:

15. I see all the Devas, O Deva, in Your body, and hosts of all grades of beings; Brahma, the Lord, seated on the lotus, and all the Rishis and celestial serpents.

16. I see You of boundless form on every side with manifold arms, stomachs, mouths and eyes; neither the end nor the middle, nor also the beginning of You do I see, O Lord of the Universe, O Universal Form.

17. I see You with diadem, club, and discus; a mass of radiance shining everywhere, very hard to look at, all around blazing like burning fire and sun, and immeasurable.

18. You are the Imperishable, the Supreme Being, the one thing to be known. You are the great Refuge of this Universe;. You are the undying Guardian of the Eternal Dharma, You are the Ancient. Purusha, I ween.

19. I see You without beginning, middle or end, infinite in power, of manifold arms; the sun and the moon Your eyes, the burning fire Your mouth; heating the whole Universe with Your radiance.

20. The space between heaven and earth and all the quarters are filled by You alone; having seen this, Your marvelous and awful Form, the three worlds are trembling with fear, O Great-souled One.

—Bhagavad Gita, 11:9-20

Sayings of Ramakrishna 131

As the water enters in on one side under the bridge, and soon passes out on the other, so religious advice affects worldly souls. 

It enters into them by one ear and goes out by the other, without making any impression upon their minds.

Seneca, Moral Letters 19.6

"But," you say, "how can I take my leave?" 

 

Any way you please. 

 

Reflect how many hazards you have ventured for the sake of money, and how much toil you have undertaken for a title! You must dare something to gain leisure, also—or else grow old amid the worries of procuratorships abroad and subsequently of civil duties at home, living in turmoil and in ever fresh floods of responsibilities, which no man has ever succeeded in avoiding by unobtrusiveness or by seclusion of life. 

 

For what bearing on the case has your personal desire for a secluded life? Your position in the world desires the opposite! What if, even now, you allow that position to grow greater? But all that is added to your successes will be added to your fears.

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 19

 

But won’t it be terribly difficult to disengage from all those layers of involvement? If I have commitments, I am bound by duty to gladly fulfill them, but let me be certain I am not confusing a commitment with an attachment. Where I prefer the limelight, I can just as easily choose not to prefer it. Where I have become accustomed to fineries, I can decide to redirect my tastes, to return to something purer and simpler. 

 

For all the obstacles that can stand in the way of the body, there is nothing to hinder the mind and the will except their own movements. As that timeless line from Lawrence of Arabia, one of my favorite films, has it: “Aqaba is over there. It’s only a matter of going.” 

 

If I dedicate myself to understanding with fullness, the right way to live will also present itself to me as the most desirable way to live, and so I will not hesitate to pass over any number of lesser prizes in order to win the greatest. My motivation only wanes when I think I see something more enticing over there, and then I allow myself to be diverted from the task. 

 

If I bother to reflect with honesty and clarity, I discover that those shiny trinkets are never as satisfying as they at first appear, much like the toys children crave for months and months, only to find them a letdown when they are finally out of the package. There is the frantic rushing about in coveting them, the edgy nervousness in keeping a hold of them, and the baffled confusion when they don’t live up to the exaggerated expectations. 

 

If it’s so good, why am I still restless? If it’s so fulfilling, why do I continue to want more? There is no profound mystery to this, just an awareness that human nature can never be perfected by piling up things that have no direct bearing on the content of character. It should not surprise me that the more I mess about with trivialities, the more meaningless and frustrating my life becomes. 

 

It hardly makes sense to deliberately suffer further grief by taking on ever more petty titles and pointless burdens. The worries will diminish where the focus remains on managing what is properly my own. 

—Reflection written in 8/2012

IMAGE: Carl Spitzweg, The Hermit in front of His Retreat (1844)

Wisdom from the Early Cynics, Diogenes 1

Diogenes was a native of Sinope, son of Hicesius, a banker. Diocles relates that he went into exile because his father was entrusted with the money of the state and adulterated the coinage. 

But Eubulides in his book on Diogenes says that Diogenes himself did this and was forced to leave home along with his father. Moreover Diogenes himself actually confesses in his Pordalus that he adulterated the coinage. 

Some say that having been appointed to superintend the workmen he was persuaded by them, and that he went to Delphi or to the Delian oracle in his own city and inquired of Apollo whether he should do what he was urged to do. 

When the god gave him permission to alter the political currency, not understanding what this meant, he adulterated the state coinage, and when he was detected, according to some he was banished, while according to others he voluntarily quitted the city for fear of consequences. 

One version is that his father entrusted him with the money and that he debased it, in consequence of which the father was imprisoned and died, while the son fled, came to Delphi, and inquired, not whether he should falsify the coinage, but what he should do to gain the greatest reputation; and that then it was that he received the oracle.

—Diogenes Laërtius, 6.20-21

Wisdom from the Early Stoics, Zeno of Citium 41

There is a difference between judgement, interrogation, and inquiry, as also between imperative, adjurative, optative, hypothetical, vocative, whether that to which these terms are applied be a thing or a judgement. 

For a judgement is that which, when we set it forth in speech, becomes an assertion, and is either false or true.

An interrogation is a thing complete in itself like a judgement but demanding an answer, e.g. "Is it day?" and this is so far neither true nor false. 

Thus, "It is day" is a judgement; "Is it day?" an interrogation. 

An inquiry is something to which we cannot reply by signs, as you can nod Yes to an interrogation; but you must express the answer in words, "He lives in this or that place."

An imperative is something which conveys a command: e.g.

Go thou to the waters of Inachus.

An adjurative utterance is something . . . A vocative utterance is something the use of which implies that you are addressing someone; for instance:

Most glorious son of Atreus, Agamemnon, lord of men.

A quasi-proposition is that which, having the enunciation of a judgement, yet in consequence of the intensified tone or emotion of one of its parts falls outside the class of judgements proper, e.g.

Yea, fair indeed the Parthenon!
How like to Priam's sons the cowherd is!

There is also, differing from a proposition or judgement, what may be called a timid suggestion, the expression of which leaves one at a loss, e.g.

Can it be that pain and life are in some sort akin?

Interrogations, inquiries and the like are neither true nor false, whereas judgements or propositions are always either true or false.

—Diogenes Laërtius, 7.66-68

Stoic Snippets 119

Let there fall externally what will on the parts which can feel the effects of this fall. 

For those parts which have felt will complain, if they choose. 

But I, unless I think that what has happened is an evil, am not injured.

And it is in my power not to think so.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 7.14

Fractals 21

IMAGES: Snowflake photography by Alexey Kljatov

Seneca, Moral Letters 19.5

If you retreat to privacy, everything will be on a smaller scale, but you will be satisfied abundantly; in your present condition, however, there is no satisfaction in the plenty which is heaped upon you on all sides. 

 

Would you rather be poor and sated, or rich and hungry? Prosperity is not only greedy, but it also lies exposed to the greed of others. And as long as nothing satisfies you, you yourself cannot satisfy others. 

 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 19

Hammer away with all your might, but a square peg will not really fit in a round hole. Squint at it as much as you like, but the perfection of one creature is not interchangeable with that of another. And despite the slew of clever excuses, quantity is never a proper replacement for quality. 

 

When I’m feeling sorry for myself, I am tempted to say that I never had all that much to begin with, and yet I know quite well that I am only laying down another smokescreen. Distinguish. 

 

Though I have regularly struggled with paying the bills, the statistics put me comfortably in the middle class. Though I often feel completely clueless, I somehow managed to be in the tiny percentage of Americans to earn a Doctorate. Though I tend to think of myself as unlovable, the constant sacrifices by my parents, the steady commitment of a wife, and the undying affection of the children tell me otherwise. 

 

Where is the source of that restlessness and anxiety? Would a house twice as big make the pain go away? Would another fancy degree improve my state of mind? Maybe a mistress, or perhaps a whole harem? It sounds silly when I say it that way, and yet too many of us succumb to precisely such nightmarish fantasies. 

 

And it is all because we are trying to fill an emptiness on the inside with things from the outside. It is all because we are dissatisfied with being ourselves, and so lust after being someone else. And it is all because we believe we must become bigger instead of kinder. 

 

A private life does not require an isolation from others, though it does require no longer showing off to others. There is no need to prove my importance to anyone else, since the proof is in the living, not in the seeming. As I throw away the crutch of being accepted by the crowd, I am finally walking on my own two feet. 

 

I may finally ask myself, “Where have you been all my life?”

 

Perhaps it feels like I suddenly have less of that proverbial “stuff”? Good. It was never about that. I now look deeply into a very few things, and love them without condition, instead of hoarding a countless number of objects I pass over too quickly, using them and then tossing them aside. 

 

“But the more I profit out of the world, the more I can give to others!” That statement is completely ass-backwards. The business of life starts with the debits, not with the credits. 

 

First, I am staring myself straight in the eye, and I know that I am deceiving myself. Please stop it with that. 

 

Second, if giving myself to others is genuinely what matters to me, then I will be pleased as punch to limit myself to just myself. 

 

Is there a healthy longing of concern? Check. Is there a vital urge for compassion? Check. Whatever else the rest of the world is messing about with, what I am now doing is exactly what Providence intended for me to do. 

 

More isn’t better; better is better. 

—Reflection written in 8/2012

IMAGE: Ignacio Zuloaga, The Hermit (1904)

Dhammapada 173

He whose evil deeds are covered by good deeds, brightens up this world, like the moon when freed from clouds. 

Michael Leunig 29

Seneca, Moral Letters 19.4

Would that you had had the privilege of growing old amid the limited circumstances of your origin, and that fortune had not raised you to such heights! 

 

You were removed far from the sight of wholesome living by your swift rise to prosperity, by your province, by your position as procurator, and by all that such things promise; you will next acquire more important duties and after them still more. 

 

And what will be the result? Why wait until there is nothing left for you to crave? That time will never come. We hold that there is a succession of causes, from which fate is woven; similarly, you may be sure, there is a succession in our desires; for one begins where its predecessor ends. 

 

You have been thrust into an existence which will never of itself put an end to your wretchedness and your slavery. Withdraw your chafed neck from the yoke; it is better that it should be cut off once for all, than galled forever.

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 19

Given how deeply confused we can be about the source of our happiness, is it any surprise how turned around we also get when it comes to a measure of success or failure in life? The popular standard is that the better man is the one with more “stuff”, and so we further assume that it is absolutely best to have as much of this “stuff” as soon and as often as possible. 

 

Consequently, we may think it most helpful to surround our children from birth with plenty of worldly privilege and prestige, to give them an “advantage” of wealth and influence in climbing that ladder of achievement. 

 

Is it possible that we are doing them far greater harm than good in all this, not merely by praising riches over poverty, but rather by even encouraging them to depend on situations that have nothing to do with who they really are? What use will there be in telling them to work hard, when the effort is directed toward the wrong goal? 

 

It might seem odd for Seneca to tell Lucilius that he would be better off back in the obscurity of his childhood than in the prosperity of his adulthood, but that will only be so if we are working from the false claim that contentment is in the circumstances.

 

Seneca isn’t just proposing the contraries to the usual premises, that rich is good and that poor is bad, and he is instead challenging us to discover a different model of human worth altogether. The presence or absence of external things is not a requirement for being happy; our internal choices about how we relate to the presence or absence of such things is the key to being happy. 

 

The problem starts when we love fortune for its own sake, forgetting that events are not in themselves beneficial or harmful to the soul. Perhaps the change in estimation is slow and unassuming, yet the result is still a relationship where mastery has given way to slavery. I have never been as socially prominent as Seneca or Lucilius, though that creeping addiction sounds awfully familiar. 

 

Has being given more tempted me to neglect the dignity of my thoughts and deeds? If it beyond my power to alter what is around me, it is always within my power to alter my point of view, such that I can act as if I am poor in body, so that I may become rich in spirit. 

 

When I make demands for very little, never currying favor or expecting any further profit, I am also able to appreciate how everything I already am is more than enough to be whole. A greed for ever-growing possessions cannot be satisfied, while my own acts of understanding and of love cannot be exhausted. 

 

A cycle of dependence gives way to a pattern of self-reliance once I train myself to look away from petty diversions. I need to go all the way back to the beginning, reconsidering my first principles of right and wrong, if I ultimately wish to be freed from the yoke. 

—Reflection written in 8/2012

On the Morning of Christ's Nativity, Take Two . . .

Even though it was Christmas Day, a friendly e-mail came along, wondering why this blog had only posted the "Butts Set" of Blake's illustrations, and not also included the "Thomas Set".  

Nothing of beauty should ever be cast aside, so your wish shall be our command! I hope they bring joy! 

Done at different times, and for different sponsors, the general themes of the two versions are the same, but there are noticeable differences in the execution. 

William Blake, Illustrations to "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity" (Thomas Set, c. 1809)

1. The Descent of Peace

2. The Annunciation to the Shepherds

3. The Old Dragon

4. The Overthrow of Apollo and the Pagan Gods

5. The Flight of Moloch

6. The Night of Peace

Sayings of Publilius Syrus 34

A haughty spirit in disgrace is a show for the rabble. 

Xenophon, Memorabilia of Socrates 3

Again, Socrates ever lived in the public eye; at early morning he was to be seen betaking himself to one of the promenades, or wrestling grounds; at noon he would appear with the gathering crowds in the marketplace; and as day declined, wherever the largest throng might be encountered, there was he to be found, talking for the most part, while any one who chose might stop and listen. 

Yet no one ever heard him say, or saw him do anything impious or irreverent. Indeed, in contrast to others he set his face against all discussion of such high matters as the nature of the Universe; how the "kosmos," as the savants phrase it, came into being; or by what forces the celestial phenomena arise. To trouble one's brain about such matters was, he argued, to play the fool. 

He would ask first: Did these investigators feel their knowledge of things human so complete that they betook themselves to these lofty speculations? Or did they maintain that they were playing their proper parts in thus neglecting the affairs of man to speculate on the concerns of God? 

He was astonished they did not see how far these problems lay beyond mortal ken; since even those who pride themselves most on their discussion of these points differ from each other, as madmen do. 

For just as some madmen, he said, have no apprehension of what is truly terrible, others fear where no fear is; some are ready to say and do anything in public without the slightest symptom of shame; others think they ought not so much as to set foot among their fellow men; some honor neither temple, nor altar, nor anything else sacred to the name of God; others bow down to stocks and stones and worship the very beasts—so is it with those thinkers whose minds are cumbered with cares concerning the Universal Nature. 

One sect has discovered that Being is one and indivisible. Another that it is infinite in number. If one proclaims that all things are in a continual flux, another replies that nothing can possibly be moved at any time. The theory of the Universe as a process of birth and death is met by the counter theory, that nothing ever could be born or ever will die.

—from Xenophon, Memorabilia 1.1

IMAGE: Nicolas Guibal, Socrates Teaching Pericles (1780)

Seneca, Moral Letters 19.3

Peace you can claim for yourself without being disliked by anyone, without any sense of loss, and without any pangs of spirit. For what will you leave behind you that you can imagine yourself reluctant to leave? Your clients? 

 

But none of these men courts you for yourself; they merely court something from you. People used to hunt friends, but now they hunt money; if a lonely old man changes his will, the morning-caller transfers himself to another door. 

 

Great things cannot be bought for small sums; so reckon up whether it is preferable to leave your own true self, or merely some of your belongings.

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 19

 

I find myself both grinning and clenching my jaw at Seneca’s reference to the fear of losing our “clients”. It is a perfect challenge to my generation, so spoiled, shallow, and grasping. We were raised to become the perfect professionals, which meant nothing but a mastery of buying and selling, won with a fluency in the clever crafting of image. 

 

This made it tragically easier to follow a life of total self-service, under the appearance of progressive enlightenment. Very few of us escaped from the trap, none of us without a good number of scars to show for it. 

 

It doesn’t have to be that way. Instead of being dazzled by the many trinkets, or getting sucked into the shifty games of manipulation, there remains the option of recovering what is genuinely human, and of retiring from everything that is coldly inhuman.

 

Why worry so much about the vagaries of social standing, which are at the mercy of gossip and flattery, when I could busy myself with a moral standing, which is always mine to keep? Why fret over losing my power and influence over others, when the only power and influence that matter are those I have over the content of my own character? 

 

Contrary to all the worldly expectations, I have nothing to lose and everything to gain by making a Stoic Turn. It is impossible to be deprived of what wasn’t mine to begin with, and whatever exists within the heart and the mind remains beyond the reach of the bandits and the players. 

 

And there should be no delusions here about assuming that my bosses, partners, colleagues, or customers are concerned with my best interests. I will indeed find good people among them, and yet whatever is noble in their souls will have nothing to do with business profits, and everything to do with a simple presence of understanding and love. It is contradictory to say that I must sign a contract or exchange money to find any such human decency. 

 

If they only want you for what you can give them, head for the hills. If they love you for your own sake, then the fancy balance sheets can be tossed out the window. No more excuses. Integrity matters more than style, commitment stands for more than commodities. 

 

Yes, everything has a price, though not always in status or cash. Once I revere the goods of Nature, I will gladly trade petty property for a victory in virtue. 

—Reflection written in 8/2012

On the Morning of Christ's Nativity

William Blake, Illustrations to "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity" (Butts Set, c. 1815)

1. The Descent of Peace

2. The Annunciation to the Shepherds

3. The Old Dragon

4. The Overthrow of Apollo and the Pagan Gods

5. The Flight of Moloch

6. The Night of Peace

John Milton, "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity" (1629)

I.

This is the Month, and this the happy morn
Wherin the Son of Heav'ns 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,
Wherwith he wont at Heav'ns high Councel-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 darksom House of mortal Clay.

III.

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

IV.

See how from far upon the Eastern rode
The Star-led Wisards 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 joyn thy voice unto the Angel Quire,
From out his secret Altar toucht with hallow'd fire

THE HYMN.

I

It was the Winter wilde,
While the Heav'n-born-childe,
All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies;
Nature in aw to him
Had doff't her gawdy trim,
With her great Master so to sympathize:
It was no season then for her
To wanton with the Sun her lusty Paramour.

II.

Onely with speeches fair
She woo's the gentle Air
To hide her guilty front with innocent Snow,
And on her naked shame,
Pollute with sinfull blame,
The Saintly Vail of Maiden white to throw,
Confounded, that her Makers eyes
Should look so neer upon her foul deformities.

III.

But he her fears to cease,
Sent down the meek-eyd Peace.
She crown'd with Olive green, came softly sliding
Down through the turning sphear
His ready Harbinger,
With Turtle wing the amorous clouds dividing,
And waving wide her mirtle wand,
She strikes a universall Peace through Sea and Land.

IV.

No War, or Battails sound
Was heard the World around:
The idle spear and shield were high up hung;
The hooked Chariot stood
Unstain'd with hostile blood,
The Trumpet spake not to the armed throng,
And Kings sate still with awfull eye,
As if they surely knew their sovran Lord was by.

V.

But peacefull was the night
Wherin the Prince of light
His raign of peace upon the earth began:
The Windes with wonder whist,
Smoothly the waters kist,
Whispering new joyes to the milde 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 fixt in stedfast gaze,
Bending one way their pretious 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,
Untill their Lord himself bespake, and bid them go.

VII.

And though the shady gloom
Had given day her room,
The Sun himself with-held his wonted speed,
And hid his head for shame,
As his inferiour flame,
The new-enlightn'd world no more should need;
He saw a greater Sun appear
Then his bright Throne, or burning Axletree could bear.

VIII.

The Shepherds on the Lawn,
Or ere the point of dawn,
Sate simply chatting in a rustick row;
Full little thought they than,
That the mighty Pan
Was kindly com to live with them below;
Perhaps their loves, or els their sheep,
Was all that did their silly thoughts so busie keep.

IX.

When such musick sweet
Their hearts and ears did greet,
As never was by mortall finger strook,
Divinely-warbled voice
Answering the stringed noise,
As all their souls in blisfull rapture took:
The Air such pleasure loth to lose,
With thousand echo's 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 don,
And that her raign 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't night array'd,
The helmed Cherubim
And sworded Seraphim,
Are seen in glittering ranks with wings displaid,
Harping in loud and solemn quire,
Witn unexpressive notes to Heav'ns new-born Heir.

XII.

Such Musick (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-ballanc't world on hinges hung,
And cast the dark foundations deep,
And bid the weltring waves their oozy channel keep.

XIII.

Ring out ye Crystall sphears,
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 Base of Heav'ns deep Organ blow,
And with your ninefold harmony
Make up full consort to th'Angelike 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 it self will pass away,
And leave her dolorous mansions to the peering day.

XV.

Yea Truth, and Justice then
Will down return to men,
Th enameld Arras of the Rainbow wearing,
And Mercy set between,
Thron'd in Celestiall sheen,
With radiant feet the tissued clouds down stearing,
And Heav'n as at som festivall,
Will open wide the Gates of her high Palace Hall.

XVI.

But wisest Fate sayes 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 glorifie:
Yet first to those ychain'd in sleep.
The wakefull trump of doom must thunder through the deep,

XVII.

With such a horrid clang
As on mount Sinai rang
While the red fire, and smouldring clouds out brake:
The aged Earth agast
With terrour of that blast,
Shall from the surface to the center shake;
When at the worlds last session,
The dreadfull 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,
Swindges the scaly Horrour of his foulded tail.

XIX.

The Oracles are dumm,
No voice or hideous humm
Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving.
Apollo from his shrine
Can no more divine,
With hollow shreik the steep of Delphos leaving.
No nightly trance, or breathed spell,
Inspire's the pale-ey'd Priest from the prophetic cell.

XX.

The lonely mountains o're,
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 flowre-inwov'n tresses torn
The Nimphs 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 Flamins at their service quaint;
And the chill Marble seems to sweat,
While each peculiar power forgoes his wonted seat.

XXII.

Peor, and Baalim,
Forsake their Temples dim,
With that twise-batter'd god of Palestine,
And mooned Ashtaroth,
Heav'ns 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 Thamuz mourn.

XXIII.

And sullen Moloch fled,
Hath left in shadows dred,
His burning Idol all of blackest hue,
In vain with Cymbals ring,
They call the grisly king,
In dismall dance about the furnace blue,
The brutish gods of Nile as fast,
Isis and Orus, and the Dog Anubis hast.

XXIV.

Nor is Osiris seen
In Memphian Grove, or Green,
Trampling the unshowr'd Grasse 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 worshipt Ark.

XXV.

He feels from Juda's Land
The dredded Infants hand,
The rayes of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyn;
Nor all the gods beside,
Longer dare abide,
Not Typhon huge ending in snaky twine:
Our Babe to shew his Godhead true,
Can in his swadling bands controul 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'infernall jail,
Each fetter'd Ghost slips to his severall grave,
And the yellow-skirted Fayes,
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'ns youngest teemed Star,
Hath fixt her polisht Car,
Her sleeping Lord with Handmaid Lamp attending.
And all about the Courtly Stable,
Bright-harnest Angels sit in order serviceable.