BOOK FOURTH
��275
��(And what he brings what needs he else- where seek V)
Uncertain and unsettled still remains, Deep-versed in books and shallow in him- self,
Crude or intoxicate, collecting toys And trifles for choice matters, worth a sponge, 329
As children gathering pebbles on the shore. Or, if I would delight my private hours With music or with poem, where so soon As in our native language can I find That solace ? All our Law and Story
strewed With hymns, our Psalms with artful terms
inscribed,
Our Hebrew songs and harps, in Babylon That pleased so well our victor's ear, de- clare
That rather Greece from us these arts de- rived
111 imitated while they loudest sing The vices of their deities, and their own, In fable, hymn, or song, so personating 341 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 excel- ling* 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 teach- ing
The solid rules of civil government, In their majestic, unaffected style, 359
Than all the oratory of Greece and Rome. 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, re- plied : " 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 Wil- derness For thee is fittest place: I found thee
there,
And thither will return thee. Yet remem- ber 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 sea- son, 3 8o 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
�� �
