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affront his light.

      First, Moloch, horrid king, besmeared with blood

      Of human sacrifice, and parents’ tears;

      Though, for the noise of drums and timbrels loud,

      Their children’s cries unheard that passed through fire

      To his grim idol. Him the Ammonite

      Worshiped in Rabba and her watery plain,

      In Argob and in Basan, to the stream

      Of utmost Arnon. Nor content with such

      Audacious neighbourhood, the wisest heart

      Of Solomon he led by fraud to build

      His temple right against the temple of God

      On that opprobrious hill, and made his grove

      The pleasant valley of Hinnom, Tophet thence

      And black Gehenna called, the type of Hell.

      Next Chemos, th’ obscene dread of Moab’s sons,

      From Aroer to Nebo and the wild

      Of southmost Abarim; in Hesebon

      And Horonaim, Seon’s realm, beyond

      The flowery dale of Sibma clad with vines,

      And Elealè to th’ Asphaltic Pool:

      Peor his other name, when he enticed

      Israel in Sittim, on their march from Nile,

      To do him wanton rites, which cost them woe.

      Yet thence his lustful orgies he enlarged

      Even to that hill of scandal, by the grove

      Of Moloch homicide, lust hard by hate,

      Till good Josiah drove them thence to Hell.

      With these came they who, from the bordering flood

      Of old Euphrates to the brook that parts

      Egypt from Syrian ground, had general names

      Of Baalim and Ashtaroth—those male,

      These feminine. For Spirits, when they please,

      Can either sex assume, or both; so soft

      And uncompounded is their essence pure,

      Not tried or manacled with joint or limb,

      Nor founded on the brittle strength of bones,

      Like cumbrous flesh; but, in what shape they choose,

      Dilated or condensed, bright or obscure,

      Can execute their airy purposes,

      And works of love or enmity fulfil.

      For those the race of Israel oft forsook

      Their Living Strength, and unfrequented left

      His righteous altar, bowing lowly down

      To bestial gods; for which their heads as low

      Bowed down in battle, sunk before the spear

      Of despicable foes. With these in troop

      Came Astoreth, whom the Phoenicians called

      Astartè, queen of heaven, with crescent horns;

      To whose bright image nightly by the moon

      Sidonian virgins paid their vows and songs;

      In Sion also not unsung, where stood

      Her temple on th’ offensive mountain, built

      By that uxorious king whose heart, though large,

      Beguiled by fair idolatresses, fell

      To idols foul. Thammuz came next behind,

      Whose annual wound in Lebanon allured

      The Syrian damsels to lament his fate

      In amorous ditties all a summer’s day,

      While smooth Adonis from his native rock

      Ran purple to the sea, supposed with blood

      Of Thammuz yearly wounded: the love-tale

      Infected Sion’s daughters with like heat,

      Whose wanton passions in the sacred porch

      Ezekiel saw, when, by the vision led,

      His eye surveyed the dark idolatries

      Of alienated Judah. Next came one

      Who mourned in earnest, when the captive ark

      Maimed his brute image, head and hands lopt off,

      In his own temple, on the grunsel-edge,

      Where he fell flat and shamed his worshippers:

      Dagon his name, sea-monster, upward man

      And downward fish; yet had his temple high

      Reared in Azotus, dreaded through the coast

      Of Palestine, in Gath and Ascalon,

      And Accaron and Gaza’s frontier bounds.

      Him followed Rimmon, whose delightful seat

      Was fair Damascus, on the fertile banks

      Of Abbana and Pharphar, lucid streams.

      He also against the house of God was bold:

      A leper once he lost, and gained a king—

      Ahaz, his sottish conqueror, whom he drew

      God’s altar to disparage and displace

      For one of Syrian mode, whereon to burn

      His odious offerings, and adore the gods

      Whom he had vanquished. After these appeared

      A crew who, under names of old renown—

      Osiris, Isis, Orus, and their train—

      With monstrous shapes and sorceries abused

      Fanatic Egypt and her priests to seek

      Their wandering gods disguised in brutish forms

      Rather than human. Nor did Israel scape

      Th’ infection, when their borrowed gold composed

      The calf in Oreb; and the rebel king

      Doubled that sin in Bethel and in Dan,

      Likening his Maker to the grazed ox—

      Jehovah, who, in one night, when he passed

      From Egypt marching, equalled with one stroke

      Both her first-born and all her bleating gods.

      Belial came last; than whom a Spirit more lewd

      Fell not from Heaven, or more gross to love

      Vice for itself. To him no temple stood

      Or altar smoked; yet who more oft than he

      In temples and at altars, when the priest

      Turns atheist, as did Eli’s sons, who filled

      With lust and violence the house of God?

      In courts and palaces he also reigns,

      And in luxurious cities, where the noise

      Of riot ascends above their loftiest towers,

      And injury and outrage; and, when night

      Darkens the streets, then wander forth the sons

      Of Belial, flown with insolence and wine.

      Witness

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