[120] Full of folds or coils.

[121] The legend concerning this cessation of the oracles associates it with the Crucifixion.  Milton in The Nativity represents it as the consequence of the very presence of the infant Saviour.  War and lying are banished together.

[122] The genius is the local god, the god of the place as a place.

[123] The Lars were the protecting spirits of the ancestors of the family; the Lemures were evil spirits, spectres, or bad ghosts.  But the notions were somewhat indefinite.

[124] Flamen was the word used for priest when the Romans spoke of the priest of any particular divinity.  Hence the peculiar power in the last line of the stanza.

[125] Jupiter Ammon, worshipped in Libya, in the north of Africa, under the form of a goat.  “He draws in his horn.”

[126] The Syrian Adonis.

[127] Frightful, horrible, as, a grisly bear.

[128] Isis, Orus, Anubis, and Osiris, all Egyptian divinities—­the last worshipped in the form of a bull.

[129] No rain falls in Egypt.

[130] Last-born:  the star in the east.

[131] Bright-armoured.

[132] Ready for what service may arise.

[133] The with we should now omit, for when we use it we mean the opposite of what is meant here.

[134] It is the light of the soul going out from the eyes, as certainly as the light of the world coming in at the eyes that makes things seen.

[135] The action by which a body attacked collects force by opposition.

[136] Cut roughly through.

[137] Intransitively used.  They touch each other.

[138] Self-desire, which is death’s pit, &c.

[139] Which understood.

[140] How unpleasant conceit can become.  The joy of seeing the Saviour was stolen because they gained it in the absence of the sun!

[141] A trisyllable.

[142] His garland.

[143] The “sunny seed” in their hearts.

[144] From tine or tind, to set on fire.  Hence tinder.

[145] The body of Jesus.

[146] Mark i. 35; Luke xxi. 37.  The word time must be associated both with progress and prayer—­his walking-time and prayer-time.

[147] This is an allusion to the sphere-music:  the great heavens is a clock whose hours are those when Jesus retires to his Father; and to these hours the sphere-music gives the chime.

[148] He continues his poetic synonyms for the night.

[149] “Behold I stand at the door and knock.”

[150] A monosyllable.

[151] Often used for chambers.

[152] “The creation looks for the light, thy shadow?” Or, “The light looks for thy shadow, the sun”?

[153] Perforce:  of necessity.

[154] He does not mean his fellows, but his bodily nature.