What wonder, then, if I delight to hear

Her dictates from thy mouth? most men admire

Virtue who follow not her lore. Permit me

To hear thee when I come (since no man comes),

And talk at least, though I despair to attain.

Thy Father, who is holy, wise, and pure,

Suffers the hypocrite or atheous priest

To tread his sacred courts, and minister

About his altar, handling holy things,

Praying or vowing, and voutsafed his voice

To Balaam reprobate, a prophet yet

Inspired: disdain not such access to me.”

To whom our Saviour, with unaltered brow:—

“Thy coming hither, though I know thy scope,

I bid not, or forbid. Do as thou find’st

Permission from above; thou canst not more.”

He added not; and Satan, bowling low

His gray dissimulation, disappeared,

Into thin air diffused: for now began

Night with her sullen wing to double-shade

The desert; fowls in their clay nests were couched;

And now wild beasts came forth the woods to roam.

THE SECOND BOOK

Meanwhile the new-baptized, who yet remained

At Jordan with the Baptist, and had seen

Him whom they heard so late expressly called

Jesus Messiah, Son of God, declared,

And on that high authority had believed,

And with him talked, and with him lodged—I mean

Andrew 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 once

Moses was in the Mount and missing long,

And the great Thisbite, who on fiery wheels

Rode up to Heaven, yet once again to come.

Therefore, as those young prophets then with care

Sought lost Eliah, so in each place these

Nigh to Bethabara—in Jericho

The city of palms, AEnon, and Salem old,

Machaerus, and each town or city walled

On 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 relapse

Unlooked for are we fallen! Our eyes beheld

Messiah certainly now come, so long

Expected of our fathers; we have heard

His 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 turned

Into perplexity and new amaze.

For whither is he gone? what accident

Hath rapt him from us? will he now retire

After appearance, and again prolong

Our expectation? God of Israel,

Send thy Messiah forth; the time is come.

Behold the kings of the earth, how they oppress