270
��" Much ostentation vain of fleshly arm And fragile arms, much instrument of war, Long in preparing, soon to nothing brought, Before mine eyes thou hast set, and in my
ear 390
Vented much policy, and projects deep Of enemies, of aids, battles, and leagues, Plausible to the world, to me worth naught. Means I must use, thou say'st; prediction
else
Will unpredict, and fail me of the throne ! My time, I told thee (and that time for
thee
Were better farthest off), is not yet come. When that comes, think not thou to find
me slack
On my part aught endeavouring, or to need Thy politic maxims, or that cumbersome Luggage of war there shewn me argu- ment 401 Of human weakness rather than of strength. My brethren, as thou call'st them, those
Ten Tribes,
I must deliver, if I mean to reign David's true heir, and his full sceptre sway To just extent over all Israel's sons ! But whence to thee this zeal ? Where was
it then
For Israel, or for David, or his throne, When thou stood'st up his tempter to the
pride Of numbering Israel which cost the
lives 410
Of threescore and ten thousand Israelites By three days' pestilence ? Such was thy
zeal
To Israel then, the same that now to me. As for those captive tribes, themselves were
they Who wrought their own captivity, fell off
��From God to worship calves, the deities Of Egypt, Baal next and Ashtaroth, And all the idolatries of heathen round, Besides their other worse than heathenish
crimes;
Nor in the land of their captivity 420
Humbled themselves, or penitent besought The God of their forefathers, but so died Impenitent, and left a race behind Like to themselves, distinguishable scarce From Gentiles, but by circumcision vain, And God with idols in their worship joined. Should I of these the liberty regard, Who, freed, as to their ancient patrimony, Uuhumbled, unrepentant, unreformed, Headlong would follow, and to their gods
perhaps 430
Of Bethel and of Dan? No; let them
serve
Their enemies who serve idols with God. Yet He at length, time to himself best
known, Remembering Abraham, by some wondrous
call
May bring them back, repentant and sincere, And at their passing cleave the Assyrian
flood, While to their native land with joy they
haste,
As the Red Sea and Jordan once he cleft, When to the Promised Land their fathers
passed. To his due time and providence I leave
them." 440
So spake Israel's true King, and to the
Fiend Made answer meet, that made void all his
wiles.
So fares it when with truth falsehood con- tends.
��THE FOURTH BOOK
PERPLEXED and troubled at his bad success The Tempter stood, nor had what to reply, Discovered in his fraud, thrown from his
hope
So oft, and the persuasive rhetoric That sleeked his tongue, and won so much
on Eve,
So little here, nay lost. But Eve was Eve; This far his over-match, who, self-deceived And rash, beforehand had no better weighed
��The strength he was to cope with, or his
own. But as a man who had been matchless
held 10
In cunning, over-reached where least he
thought,
To salve his credit, and for very spite, Still will be tempting him who foils him
still, And never cease, though to his shame the
more; Or as a swarm of flies in vintage-time,
�� �
