University of Virginia Library

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THE TRIUMPH,

OR A Paraphrase upon the ninth Hymn of Synesius, written in honour of Jesus, the Son of Mary, the Saviour of the World.

O lovely Child, with Glory great arraid!
Sweet Of-spring of the Solymeian Maid!
Thee would I sing, and thy renowned Acts:
For thou didst rid the boundlesse flowry tracts
Of thy dear Fathers Garden from the spoyles
Of the false Serpent, and his treacherous toyles!
When thou hadst once descended to this earth
A stranger wight 'mongst us of humane birth;
After some stay new voyage thou didst take
Crossing cold Lethe and the Stygian Lake,
Arriv'st at the low fields of Tartara
There where innumerable flocks do stray
Of captive souls, whom pale-fac'd Death doth feed
Forc'd under his stiff Rod, and churlish Reed.
Streight at thy sight how did that surly Sire
Old Orcus quake, and greedy Dogg retire
From's usuall watch! whiles thou from slavish chain
Whole swarms of souls, to freedome dost regain.
Then 'ginst thou with thy immortall Quire to praise
Thy Father, and his strength to Heaven to raise.
Ascending thus with joy, as thou dost fare
Through the thin Sky, the Legions of the Aire
Accursed Fiends, do tremble at thy sight,
And starry Troops wax pale at thy pure light.
But Æther master of queint Harmonies
With smiling look on's Musick doth devise,
Tunes his seven-corded Harp, more trimly strung;
Then strikes up loudly thy Triumphall song.
Lucifer laughs bright Nuncio of the Day,
And golden Hesperus, to hear him play.
The Moon begins a dance, great Queen of Night,
Her hollow horns fill'd up with flusher light.

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Titan his streaming locks along doth strow
Under thy sacred feet more soft to go,
Doth homage to thee as to Gods dear Son,
And to the Spring whence his own light doth run.
Then thou, drad Victour! thy quick wings didst shake
And suddenly ascend'st above the back
Of the blew Skie. In th'Intellectuall sphears
Dispreadst thy self: Where the still Fount appears
Of inexhausted Good, and silent Heaven
Smiles without wrinckle, ever constant, even.
Unwearied Time this mansion connot seize
Nor Hyles worm, importunate Disease.
Here Æon wons that cannot wexen old,
Though of his years the numbers no'te be told.
Youthfull and ag'd at once here doth he live,
And to the Gods, unmov'd duration give.