In vain, with timbrelled anthems dark,
The sable-stoled sorcerers bear his worshipped ark:

He feels, from Judah'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.

So, when the sun in bed,
Curtained with cloudy red,
Pillows his chin upon an orient wave,
The flocking shadows pale
Troop to the infernal jail--
Each fettered ghost slips to his several grave;
And the yellow-skirted fays
Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-loved maze.

But see, the Virgin blest
Hath laid her babe to rest:
Time is our tedious song should here have ending;
Heaven's youngest-teemed star[131]
Hath fixed her polished car,
Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending;
And all about the courtly stable
Bright-harnessed[132] angels sit, in order serviceable.[133]

If my reader should think some of the rhymes bad, and some of the words
oddly used, I would remind him that both pronunciations and meanings have
altered since: the probability is, that the older forms in both are the
better. Milton will not use a wrong word or a bad rhyme. With regard to
the form of the poem, let him observe the variety of length of line in
the stanza, and how skilfully the varied lines are associated--two of six
syllables and one of ten; then the same repeated; then one of eight and
one of twelve--no two, except of the shortest, coming together of the
same length. Its stanza is its own: I do not know another poem written in
the same; and its music is exquisite. The probability is that, if the
reader note any fact in the poem, however trifling it might seem to the
careless eye, it will repay him by unfolding both individual and related
beauty. Then let him ponder the pictures given: the sudden arraying of
the shame-faced night in long beams; the amazed kings silent on their
thrones; the birds brooding on the sea: he will find many such. Let him
consider the clear-cut epithets, so full of meaning. A true poet may be
at once known by the justice and force of the adjectives he uses,
especially when he compounds them,--that is, makes one out of two. Here
are some examples: _meek-eyed Peace; pale-eyed priest; sp