Their gods ridiculous, and themselves past shame. Remove their swelling epithetes, thick-laid As varnish on a harlot’s cheek, the rest, Thin-sown with aught of profit or delight, Will far be found unworthy to compare With Sion’s songs, to all true tastes excelling, Where God is praised aright and godlike men, The Holiest of Holies and his Saints (Such are from God inspired, not such from thee); 350 Unless where moral virtue is expressed By light of Nature, not in all quite lost. Their orators thou then extoll’st as those The top of eloquence—statists indeed, And lovers of their country, as may seem; But herein to our Prophets far beneath, As men divinely taught, and better teaching The solid rules of civil government, In their majestic, unaffected style, Than all the oratory of Greece and Rome. 360 In them is plainest taught, and easiest learnt, What makes a nation happy, and keeps it so, What ruins kingdoms, and lays cities flat; These only, with our Law, best form a king.” So spake the Son of God; but Satan, now Quite at a loss (for all his darts were spent), Thus to our Saviour, with stern brow, replied:— “Since neither wealth nor honour, arms nor arts, Kingdom nor empire, pleases thee, nor aught By me proposed in life contemplative 370 Or active, tended on by glory or fame, What dost thou in this world? The Wilderness For thee is fittest place: I found thee there, And thither will return thee. Yet remember What I foretell thee; soon thou shalt have cause To wish thou never hadst rejected, thus Nicely or cautiously, my offered aid, Which would have set thee in short time with ease On David’s throne, or throne of all the world, Now at full age, fulness of time, thy season, 380 When prophecies of thee are best fulfilled. Now, contrary—if I read aught in heaven, Or heaven write aught of fate—by what the stars Voluminous, or single characters In their conjunction met, give me to spell, Sorrows and labours, opposition, hate, Attends thee; scorns, reproaches, injuries, Violence and stripes, and, lastly, cruel death. A kingdom they portend thee, but what kingdom, Real or allegoric, I discern not; 390 Nor when: eternal sure—as without end, Without beginning; for no date prefixed Directs me in the starry rubric set.” So saying, he took (for still he knew his power Not yet expired), and to the Wilderness Brought back, the Son of God, and left him there, Feigning to disappear. Darkness now rose, As daylight sunk, and brought in louring Night, Her shadowy offspring, unsubstantial both, Privation mere of light and absent day. 400 Our Saviour, meek, and with untroubled mind After hisaerie jaunt, though hurried sore, Hungry and cold, betook him to his rest, Wherever, under some concourse of shades, Whose branching arms thick intertwined might shield From dews and damps of night his sheltered head; But, sheltered, slept in vain; for at his head The Tempter watched, and soon with ugly dreams Disturbed his sleep.