Book II

Meanwhile the new-baptized, who yet remainedAt Jordan with the Baptist, and had seenHim whom they heard so late expressly calledJesus Messiah, Son of God, declared,And on that high authority had believed,And with him talked, and with him lodged—I meanAndrew and Simon, famous after known,With others, though in Holy Writ not named—Now missing him, their joy so lately found,So lately found and so abruptly gone,Began to doubt, and doubted many days,And, as the days increased, increased their doubt.Sometimes they thought he might be only shewn,And for a time caught up to God, as onceMoses was in the Mount and missing long,And the great Thisbite, who on fiery wheelsRode up to Heaven, yet once again to come.Therefore, as those young prophets then with careSought lost Eliah, so in each place theseNigh to Bethabara—in JerichoThe city of palms, AEnon, and Salem old,Machaerus, and each town or city walledOn this side the broad lake Genezaret,Or in Peraea—but returned in vain.Then on the bank of Jordan, by a creek,Where winds with reeds and osiers whispering play,Plain fishermen (no greater men them call),Close in a cottage low together got,Their unexpected loss and plaints outbreathed:—“Alas, from what high hope to what relapseUnlooked for are we fallen! Our eyes beheldMessiah certainly now come, so longExpected of our fathers; we have heardHis words, his wisdom full of grace and truth.‘Now, now, for sure, deliverance is at hand;The kingdom shall to Israel be restored:’Thus we rejoiced, but soon our joy is turnedInto perplexity and new amaze.For whither is he gone? what accidentHath rapt him from us? will he now retireAfter appearance, and again prolongOur expectation? God of Israel,Send thy Messiah forth; the time is come.Behold the kings of the earth, how they oppressThy Chosen, to what highth their power unjustThey have exalted, and behind them castAll fear of Thee; arise, and vindicateThy glory; free thy people from their yoke!But let us wait; thus far He hath performed—Sent his Anointed, and to us revealed himBy his great Prophet pointed at and shownIn public, and with him we have conversed.Let us be glad of this, and all our fearsLay on his providence; He will not fail,Nor will withdraw him now, nor will recall—Mock us with his blest sight, then snatch him hence:Soon we shall see our hope, our joy, return.”Thus they out of their plaints new hope resumeTo find whom at the first they found unsought.But to his mother Mary, when she sawOthers returned from baptism, not her Son,Nor left at Jordan tidings of him none,Within her breast though calm, her breast though pure,Motherly cares and fears got head, and raisedSome troubled thoughts, which she in sighs thus clad:—“Oh, what avails me now that honour high,To have conceived of God, or that salute,‘Hail, highly favoured, among women blest!’While I to sorrows am no less advanced,And fears as eminent above the lotOf other women, by the birth I bore:In such a season born, when scarce a shedCould be obtained to shelter him or meFrom the bleak air? A stable was our warmth,A manger his; yet soon enforced to flyThence into Egypt, till the murderous kingWere dead, who sought his life, and, missing, filledWith infant blood the streets of Bethlehem.From Egypt home returned, in NazarethHath been our dwelling many years; his lifePrivate, unactive, calm, contemplative,Little suspicious to any king. But now,Full grown to man, acknowledged, as I hear,By John the Baptist, and in public shewn,Son owned from Heaven by his Father’s voice,I looked for some great change. To honour? no;But trouble, as old Simeon plain foretold,That to the fall and rising he should beOf many in Israel, and to a signSpoken against—that through my very soulA sword shall pierce. This is my favoured lot,My exaltation to afflictions high!Afflicted I may be, it seems, and blest!I will not argue that, nor will repine.But where delays he now? Some great intentConceals him. When twelve years he scarce had seen,I lost him, but so found as well I sawHe could not lose himself, but went aboutHis Father’s business. What he meant I mused—Since understand; much more his absence nowThus long to some great purpose he obscures.But I to wait with patience am inured;My heart hath been a storehouse long of thingsAnd sayings laid up, pretending strange events.”Thus Mary, pondering oft, and oft to mindRecalling what remarkably had passedSince first her Salutation heard, with thoughtsMeekly composed awaited the fulfilling:The while her Son, tracing the desert wild,Sole, but with holiest meditations fed,Into himself descended, and at onceAll his great work to come before him set—How to begin, how to accomplish bestHis end of being on Earth, and mission high.For Satan, with sly preface to return,Had left him vacant, and with speed was goneUp to the middle region of thick air,Where all his Potentates in council sate.There, without sign of boast, or sign of joy,Solicitous and blank, he thus began:—“Princes, Heaven’s ancient Sons, AEthereal Thrones—Daemonian Spirits now, from the elementEach of his reign allotted, rightlier calledPowers of Fire, Air, Water, and Earth beneath(So may we hold our place and these mild seatsWithout new trouble!)—such an enemyIs risen to invade us, who no lessThreatens than our expulsion down to Hell.I, as I undertook, and with the voteConsenting in full frequence was impowered,Have found him, viewed him, tasted him; but findFar other labour to be undergoneThan when I dealt with Adam, first of men,Though Adam by his wife’s allurement fell,However to this Man inferior far—If he be Man by mother’s side, at leastWith more than human gifts from Heaven adorned,Perfections absolute, graces divine,And amplitude of mind to greatest deeds.Therefore I am returned, lest confidenceOf my success with Eve in ParadiseDeceive ye to persuasion over-sureOf like succeeding here. I summon allRather to be in readiness with handOr counsel to assist, lest I, who erstThought none my equal, now be overmatched.”So spake the old Serpent, doubting, and from allWith clamour was assured their utmost aidAt his command; when from amidst them roseBelial, the dissolutest Spirit that fell,The sensualest, and, after Asmodai,The fleshliest Incubus, and thus advised:—“Set women in his eye and in his walk,Among daughters of men the fairest found.Many are in each region passing fairAs the noon sky, more like to goddessesThan mortal creatures, graceful and discreet,Expert in amorous arts, enchanting tonguesPersuasive, virgin majesty with mildAnd sweet allayed, yet terrible to approach,Skilled to retire, and in retiring drawHearts after them tangled in amorous nets.Such object hath the power to soften and tameSeverest temper, smooth the rugged’st brow,Enerve, and with voluptuous hope dissolve,Draw out with credulous desire, and leadAt will the manliest, resolutest breast,As the magnetic hardest iron draws.Women, when nothing else, beguiled the heartOf wisest Solomon, and made him build,And made him bow, to the gods of his wives.”To whom quick answer Satan thus returned:—“Belial, in much uneven scale thou weigh’stAll others by thyself. Because of oldThou thyself doat’st on womankind, admiringTheir shape, their colour, and attractive grace,None are, thou think’st, but taken with such toys.Before the Flood, thou, with thy lusty crew,False titled Sons of God, roaming the Earth,Cast wanton eyes on the daughters of men,And coupled with them, and begot a race.Have we not seen, or by relation heard,In courts and regal chambers how thou lurk’st,In wood or grove, by mossy fountain-side,In valley or green meadow, to waylaySome beauty rare, Calisto, Clymene,Daphne, or Semele, Antiopa,Or Amymone, Syrinx, many moreToo long—then lay’st thy scapes on names adored,Apollo, Neptune, Jupiter, or Pan,Satyr, or Faun, or Silvan? But these hauntsDelight not all. Among the sons of menHow many have with a smile made small accountOf beauty and her lures, easily scornedAll her assaults, on worthier things intent!Remember that Pellean conqueror,A youth, how all the beauties of the EastHe slightly viewed, and slightly overpassed;How he surnamed of Africa dismissed,In his prime youth, the fair Iberian maid.For Solomon, he lived at ease, and, fullOf honour, wealth, high fare, aimed not beyondHigher design than to enjoy his state;Thence to the bait of women lay exposed.But he whom we attempt is wiser farThan Solomon, of more exalted mind,Made and set wholly on the accomplishmentOf greatest things. What woman will you find,Though of this age the wonder and the fame,On whom his leisure will voutsafe an eyeOf fond desire? Or should she, confident,As sitting queen adored on Beauty’s throne,Descend with all her winning charms begirtTo enamour, as the zone of Venus onceWrought that effect on Jove (so fables tell),How would one look from his majestic brow,Seated as on the top of Virtue’s hill,Discountenance her despised, and put to routAll her array, her female pride deject,Or turn to reverent awe! For Beauty standsIn the admiration only of weak mindsLed captive; cease to admire, and all her plumesFall flat, and shrink into a trivial toy,At every sudden slighting quite abashed.Therefore with manlier objects we must tryHis constancy—with such as have more shewOf worth, of honour, glory, and popular praise(Rocks whereon greatest men have oftest wrecked);Or that which only seems to satisfyLawful desires of nature, not beyond.And now I know he hungers, where no foodIs to be found, in the wide Wilderness:The rest commit to me; I shall let passNo advantage, and his strength as oft assay.”He ceased, and heard their grant in loud acclaim;Then forthwith to him takes a chosen bandOf Spirits likest to himself in guile,To be at hand and at his beck appear,If cause were to unfold some active sceneOf various persons, each to know his part;Then to the desert takes with these his flight,Where still, from shade to shade, the Son of God,After forty days’ fasting, had remained,Now hungering first, and to himself thus said:—“Where will this end? Four times ten days I have passedWandering this woody maze, and human foodNor tasted, nor had appetite. That fastTo virtue I impute not, or count partOf what I suffer here. If nature need not,Or God support nature without repast,Though needing, what praise is it to endure?But now I feel I hunger; which declaresNature hath need of what she asks. Yet GodCan satisfy that need some other way,Though hunger still remain. So it remainWithout this body’s wasting, I content me,And from the sting of famine fear no harm;Nor mind it, fed with better thoughts, that feedMe hungering more to do my Father’s will.”It was the hour of night, when thus the SonCommuned in silent walk, then laid him downUnder the hospitable covert nighOf trees thick interwoven. There he slept,And dreamed, as appetite is wont to dream,Of meats and drinks, nature’s refreshment sweet.Him thought he by the brook of Cherith stood,And saw the ravens with their horny beaksFood to Elijah bringing even and morn—Though ravenous, taught to abstain from what they brought;He saw the Prophet also, how he fledInto the desert, and how there he sleptUnder a juniper—then how, awaked,He found his supper on the coals prepared,And by the Angel was bid rise and eat,And eat the second time after repose,The strength whereof sufficed him forty days:Sometimes that with Elijah he partook,Or as a guest with Daniel at his pulse.Thus wore out night; and now the harald LarkLeft his ground-nest, high towering to descryThe Morn’s approach, and greet her with his song.As lightly from his grassy couch up roseOur Saviour, and found all was but a dream;Fasting he went to sleep, and fasting waked.Up to a hill anon his steps he reared,From whose high top to ken the prospect round,If cottage were in view, sheep-cote, or herd;But cottage, herd, or sheep-cote, none he saw—Only in a bottom saw a pleasant grove,With chaunt of tuneful birds resounding loud.Thither he bent his way, determined thereTo rest at noon, and entered soon the shadeHigh-roofed, and walks beneath, and alleys brown,That opened in the midst a woody scene;Nature’s own work it seemed (Nature taught Art),And, to a superstitious eye, the hauntOf wood-gods and wood-nymphs. He viewed it round;When suddenly a man before him stood,Not rustic as before, but seemlier clad,As one in city or court or palace bred,And with fair speech these words to him addressed:—“With granted leave officious I return,But much more wonder that the Son of GodIn this wild solitude so long should bide,Of all things destitute, and, well I know,Not without hunger. Others of some note,As story tells, have trod this wilderness:The fugitive Bond-woman, with her son,Outcast Nebaioth, yet found here reliefBy a providing Angel; all the raceOf Israel here had famished, had not GodRained from heaven manna; and that Prophet bold,Native of Thebez, wandering here, was fedTwice by a voice inviting him to eat.Of thee those forty days none hath regard,Forty and more deserted here indeed.”To whom thus Jesus:—“What conclud’st thou hence?They all had need; I, as thou seest, have none.”“How hast thou hunger then?” Satan replied.“Tell me, if food were now before thee set,Wouldst thou not eat?” “Thereafter as I likethe giver,” answered Jesus. “Why should thatCause thy refusal?” said the subtle Fiend.“Hast thou not right to all created things?Owe not all creatures, by just right, to theeDuty and service, nor to stay till bid,But tender all their power? Nor mention IMeats by the law unclean, or offered firstTo idols—those young Daniel could refuse;Nor proffered by an enemy—though whoWould scruple that, with want oppressed? Behold,Nature ashamed, or, better to express,Troubled, that thou shouldst hunger, hath purveyedFrom all the elements her choicest store,To treat thee as beseems, and as her LordWith honour. Only deign to sit and eat.”He spake no dream; for, as his words had end,Our Saviour, lifting up his eyes, beheld,In ample space under the broadest shade,A table richly spread in regal mode,With dishes piled and meats of noblest sortAnd savour—beasts of chase, or fowl of game,In pastry built, or from the spit, or boiled,Grisamber-steamed; all fish, from sea or shore,Freshet or purling brook, of shell or fin,And exquisitest name, for which was drainedPontus, and Lucrine bay, and Afric coast.Alas! how simple, to these cates compared,Was that crude Apple that diverted Eve!And at a stately sideboard, by the wine,That fragrant smell diffused, in order stoodTall stripling youths rich-clad, of fairer hueThan Ganymed or Hylas; distant more,Under the trees now tripped, now solemn stood,Nymphs of Diana’s train, and NaiadesWith fruits and flowers from Amalthea’s horn,And ladies of the Hesperides, that seemedFairer than feigned of old, or fabled sinceOf faery damsels met in forest wideBy knights of Logres, or of Lyones,Lancelot, or Pelleas, or Pellenore.And all the while harmonious airs were heardOf chiming strings or charming pipes; and windsOf gentlest gale Arabian odours fannedFrom their soft wings, and Flora’s earliest smells.Such was the splendour; and the Tempter nowHis invitation earnestly renewed:—“What doubts the Son of God to sit and eat?These are not fruits forbidden; no interdictDefends the touching of these viands pure;Their taste no knowledge works, at least of evil,But life preserves, destroys life’s enemy,Hunger, with sweet restorative delight.All these are Spirits of air, and woods, and springs,Thy gentle ministers, who come to payThee homage, and acknowledge thee their Lord.What doubt’st thou, Son of God? Sit down and eat.”To whom thus Jesus temperately replied:—“Said’st thou not that to all things I had right?And who withholds my power that right to use?Shall I receive by gift what of my own,When and where likes me best, I can command?I can at will, doubt not, as soon as thou,Command a table in this wilderness,And call swift flights of Angels ministrant,Arrayed in glory, on my cup to attend:Why shouldst thou, then, obtrude this diligenceIn vain, where no acceptance it can find?And with my hunger what hast thou to do?Thy pompous delicacies I contemn,And count thy specious gifts no gifts, but guiles.”To whom thus answered Satan, male-content:—“That I have also power to give thou seest;If of that power I bring thee voluntaryWhat I might have bestowed on whom I pleased,And rather opportunely in this placeChose to impart to thy apparent need,Why shouldst thou not accept it? But I seeWhat I can do or offer is suspect.Of these things others quickly will dispose,Whose pains have earned the far-fet spoil.” With thatBoth table and provision vanished quite,With sound of harpies’ wings and talons heard;Only the importune Tempter still remained,And with these words his temptation pursued:—“By hunger, that each other creature tames,Thou art not to be harmed, therefore not moved;Thy temperance, invincible besides,For no allurement yields to appetite;And all thy heart is set on high designs,High actions. But wherewith to be achieved?Great acts require great means of enterprise;Thou art unknown, unfriended, low of birth,A carpenter thy father known, thyselfBred up in poverty and straits at home,Lost in a desert here and hunger-bit.Which way, or from what hope, dost thou aspireTo greatness? whence authority deriv’st?What followers, what retinue canst thou gain,Or at thy heels the dizzy multitude,Longer than thou canst feed them on thy cost?Money brings honour, friends, conquest, and realms.What raised Antipater the Edomite,And his son Herod placed on Juda’s throne,Thy throne, but gold, that got him puissant friends?Therefore, if at great things thou wouldst arrive,Get riches first, get wealth, and treasure heap—Not difficult, if thou hearken to me.Riches are mine, fortune is in my hand;They whom I favour thrive in wealth amain,While virtue, valour, wisdom, sit in want.”To whom thus Jesus patiently replied:—“Yet wealth without these three is impotentTo gain dominion, or to keep it gained—Witness those ancient empires of the earth,In highth of all their flowing wealth dissolved;But men endued with these have oft attained,In lowest poverty, to highest deeds—Gideon, and Jephtha, and the shepherd ladWhose offspring on the throne of Juda sateSo many ages, and shall yet regainThat seat, and reign in Israel without end.Among the Heathen (for throughout the worldTo me is not unknown what hath been doneWorthy of memorial) canst thou not rememberQuintius, Fabricius, Curius, Regulus?For I esteem those names of men so poor,Who could do mighty things, and could contemnRiches, though offered from the hand of kings.And what in me seems wanting but that IMay also in this poverty as soonAccomplish what they did, perhaps and more?Extol not riches, then, the toil of fools,The wise man’s cumbrance, if not snare; more aptTo slacken virtue and abate her edgeThan prompt her to do aught may merit praise.What if with like aversion I rejectRiches and realms! Yet not for that a crown,Golden in shew, is but a wreath of thorns,Brings dangers, troubles, cares, and sleepless nights,To him who wears the regal diadem,When on his shoulders each man’s burden lies;For therein stands the office of a king,His honour, virtue, merit, and chief praise,That for the public all this weight he bears.Yet he who reigns within himself, and rulesPassions, desires, and fears, is more a king—Which every wise and virtuous man attains;And who attains not, ill aspires to ruleCities of men, or headstrong multitudes,Subject himself to anarchy within,Or lawless passions in him, which he serves.But to guide nations in the way of truthBy saving doctrine, and from error leadTo know, and, knowing, worship God aright,Is yet more kingly. This attracts the soul,Governs the inner man, the nobler part;That other o’er the body only reigns,And oft by force—which to a generous mindSo reigning can be no sincere delight.Besides, to give a kingdom hath been thoughtGreater and nobler done, and to lay downFar more magnanimous, than to assume.Riches are needless, then, both for themselves,And for thy reason why they should be sought—To gain a sceptre, oftest better missed.”