The shepherds on the lawn,
    Or e’er the point of dawn,
  Sat simply chatting in a rustic row;
    Full little thought they then
    That the mighty Pan
  Was kindly come to live with them below;
  Perhaps their loves, or else their sheep,
  Was all that did their silly thoughts so busy keep.

    When such music sweet
    Their hearts and ears did greet
  As never was by mortal finger strook—­
    Divinely-warbled voice
    Answering the stringed noise,
  As all their souls in blissful rapture took;
  The air, such pleasure loath to lose,
  With thousand echoes still prolongs each heavenly close.

    Nature, that heard such sound
    Beneath the hollow round
  Of Cynthia’s seat the airy region thrilling,
    Now was almost won
    To think her part was done. 
  And that her reign had here its last fulfilling;
  She knew such harmony alone
  Could hold all heaven and earth in happier union.

    At last surrounds their sight
    A globe of circular light,
  That with long beams the shamefaced night arrayed;
    The helmed cherubim
    And sworded seraphim
  Are seen in glittering ranks with wings displayed,
  Harping in loud and solemn choir,
  With unexpressive notes, to heaven’s new-born heir—­

    Such music as (’tis said)
    Before was never made,
  But when of old the sons of morning sung,
    While the Creator great
    His constellations set,
  And the well-balanced world on hinges hung,
  And cast the dark foundations deep,
  And bid the weltering waves their oozy channel keep.

    Ring out, ye crystal spheres! 
    Once bless our human ears,
  If ye have power to touch our senses so;
    And let your silver chime
    Move in melodious time,
  And let the bass of heaven’s deep organ blow;
  And with your ninefold harmony
  Make up full consort to the angelic symphony.

    For if such holy song
    Inwrap our fancy long,
  Time will run back, and fetch the age of gold;
    And speckled vanity
    Will sicken soon and die,
  And leprous sin will melt from earthly mould;
  And hell itself will pass away. 
  And leave her dolorous mansions to the peering day.

    Yea, truth and justice then
    Will down return to men,
  Orbed in a rainbow; and, like glories wearing,
    Mercy will sit between,
    Throned in celestial sheen,
  With radiant feet the tissued clouds down steering;
  And heaven, as at some festival,
  Will open wide the gates of her high palace hall.

    But wisest fate says No—­
    This must not yet be so;
  The babe yet lies in smiling infancy
    That on the bitter cross
    Must redeem our loss. 
  So both Himself and us to glorify. 
  Yet first to those ye chained in sleep
  The wakeful trump of doom must thunder through the deep,