With such a horrid clang As on Mount Sinai rang While the red fire and smouldering clouds outbrake: The aged Earth aghast With terror of that blast Shall from the surface to the centre shake, When, at the world's last sessión, The dreadful Judge in middle air shall spread His throne. And then at last our bliss Full and perfect is, But now begins; for from this happy day The old Dragon under ground, In straiter limits bound, Not half so far casts his usurpéd sway; And, wroth to see his kingdom fail, Swinges the scaly horror of his folded tail. The Oracles are dumb; No voice or hideous hum Runs through the archéd roof in words deceiving. Apollo from his shrine Can no more divine, With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving: No nightly trance or breathéd spell Inspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell. The lonely mountains o'er And the resounding shore A voice of weeping heard, and loud lament; From haunted spring and dale Edged with poplar pale The parting Genius is With sighing sent; With flower-inwoven tresses torn The Nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn. In consecrated earth And on the holy hearth The Lars and Lemurés moan with midnight plaint; In urns, and altars round A drear and dying sound Affrights the Flamens at their service quaint; And the chill marble seems to sweat, While each peculiar Power foregoes his wonted seat. Peor and Baalim Forsake their temples dim, With that twice-batter'd god of Palestine; And moonéd Ashtaroth Heaven's queen and mother both, Now sits not girt with tapers' holy shine; The Lybic Hammon shrinks his horn: In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz mourn. And sullen Moloch, fled, Hath left in shadows dread His burning idol all of blackest hue; In vain with cymbals' ring They call the grisly king, In dismal dance about the furnace blue; The brutish gods of Nile as fast, Isis; and Orus, and the dog Anubis, haste. Nor is Osiris seen In Memphian grove, or green, Trampling the unshower'd grass with lowings loud: Nor can he be at rest Within his sacred chest; Nought but profoundest Hell can be his shroud; In vain with timbrell'd anthems dark The sable-stoléd sorcerers bear his worshipt ark. He feels from Juda'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 damnéd crew.