"Since neither wealth nor honour, arms nor arts,

Kingdom nor empire, pleases thee, nor aught

By me proposed in life contemplative

Or active, tended on by glory or fame,

What dost thou in this world? The Wilderness

For thee is fittest place: I found thee there,

And thither will return thee. Yet remember

What I foretell thee; soon thou shalt have cause

To wish thou never hadst rejected, thus

Nicely or cautiously, my offered aid,

Which would have set thee in short time with ease

On David's throne, or throne of all the world,

Now at full age, fulness of time, thy season,

When prophecies of thee are best fulfilled.

Now, contrary—if I read aught in heaven,

Or heaven write aught of fate—by what the stars

Voluminous, or single characters

In their conjunction met, give me to spell,

Sorrows and labours, opposition, hate,

Attends thee; scorns, reproaches, injuries,

Violence and stripes, and, lastly, cruel death.

A kingdom they portend thee, but what kingdom,

Real or allegoric, I discern not;

Nor when: eternal sure—as without end,

Without beginning; for no date prefixed

Directs me in the starry rubric set."

So saying, he took (for still he knew his power

Not yet expired), and to the Wilderness

Brought back, the Son of God, and left him there,

Feigning to disappear. Darkness now rose,

As daylight sunk, and brought in louring Night,

Her shadowy offspring, unsubstantial both,

Privation mere of light and absent day.

Our Saviour, meek, and with untroubled mind

After hisaerie jaunt, though hurried sore,

Hungry and cold, betook him to his rest,

Wherever, under some concourse of shades,

Whose branching arms thick intertwined might shield

From dews and damps of night his sheltered head;

But, sheltered, slept in vain; for at his head

The Tempter watched, and soon with ugly dreams

Disturbed his sleep. And either tropic now

'Gan thunder, and both ends of heaven; the clouds

From many a horrid rift abortive poured

Fierce rain with lightning mixed, water with fire,

In ruin reconciled; nor slept the winds

Within their stony caves, but rushed abroad

From the four hinges of the world, and fell

On the vexed wilderness, whose tallest pines,

Though rooted deep as high, and sturdiest oaks,

Bowed their stiff necks, loaden with stormy blasts,

Or torn up sheer. Ill wast thou shrouded then,

O patient Son of God, yet only stood'st

Unshaken! Nor yet staid the terror there:

Infernal ghosts and hellish furies round

Environed thee; some howled, some yelled, some shrieked,

Some bent at thee their fiery darts, while thou

Sat'st unappalled in calm and sinless peace.

Thus passed the night so foul, till Morning fair

Came forth with pilgrim steps, in amice grey,

Who with her radiant finger stilled the roar

Of thunder, chased the clouds, and laid the winds,

And griesly spectres, which the Fiend had raised

To tempt the Son of God with terrors dire.

And now the sun with more effectual beams

Had cheered the face of earth, and dried the wet

From drooping plant, or dropping tree; the birds,

Who all things now behold more fresh and green,

After a night of storm so ruinous,

Cleared up their choicest notes in bush and spray,

To gratulate the sweet return of morn.

Nor yet, amidst this joy and brightest morn,

Was absent, after all his mischief done,

The Prince of Darkness; glad would also seem

Of this fair change, and to our Saviour came;

Yet with no new device (they all were spent),

Rather by this his last affront resolved,

Desperate of better course, to vent his rage

And mad despite to be so oft repelled.

Him walking on a sunny hill he found,

Backed on the north and west by a thick wood;

Out of the wood he starts in wonted shape,

And in a careless mood thus to him said:—

"Fair morning yet betides thee, Son of God,

After a dismal night. I heard the wrack,

As earth and sky would mingle; but myself

Was distant; and these flaws, though mortals fear them,

As dangerous to the pillared frame of Heaven,

Or to the Earth's dark basis underneath,

Are to the main as inconsiderable

And harmless, if not wholesome, as a sneeze

To man's less universe, and soon are gone.

Yet, as being ofttimes noxious where they light

On man, beast, plant, wasteful and turbulent,

Like turbulencies in the affairs of men,

Over whose heads they roar, and seem to point,

They oft fore-signify and threaten ill.

This tempest at this desert most was bent;

Of men at thee, for only thou here dwell'st.

Did I not tell thee, if thou didst reject

The perfect season offered with my aid

To win thy destined seat, but wilt prolong

All to the push of fate, pursue thy way

Of gaining David's throne no man knows when

(For both the when and how is nowhere told),

Thou shalt be what thou art ordained, no doubt;

For Angels have proclaimed it, but concealing

The time and means? Each act is rightliest done

Not when it must, but when it may be best.

If thou observe not this, be sure to find

What I foretold thee—many a hard assay

Of dangers, and adversities, and pains,

Ere thou of Israel's sceptre get fast hold;

Whereof this ominous night that closed thee round,

So many terrors, voices, prodigies,

May warn thee, as a sure foregoing sign."

So talked he, while the Son of God went on,

And staid not, but in brief him answered thus:—

"Me worse than wet thou find'st not; other harm

Those terrors which thou speak'st of did me none.

I never feared they could, though noising loud

And threatening nigh: what they can do as signs

Betokening or ill-boding I contemn

As false portents, not sent from God, but thee;

Who, knowing I shall reign past thy preventing,

Obtrud'st thy offered aid, that I, accepting,

At least might seem to hold all power of thee,

Ambitious Spirit! and would'st be thought my God;

And storm'st, refused, thinking to terrify

Me to thy will! Desist (thou art discerned,

And toil'st in vain), nor me in vain molest."

To whom the Fiend, now swoln with rage, replied:—

"Then hear, O Son of David, virgin-born!

For Son of God to me is yet in doubt.

Of the Messiah I have heard foretold

By all the Prophets; of thy birth, at length

Announced by Gabriel, with the first I knew,

And of the angelic song in Bethlehem field,

On thy birth-night, that sung thee Saviour born.

From that time seldom have I ceased to eye

Thy infancy, thy childhood, and thy youth,

Thy manhood last, though yet in private bred;

Till, at the ford of Jordan, whither all

Flocked to the Baptist, I among the rest

(Though not to be baptized), by voice from Heaven

Heard thee pronounced the Son of God beloved.

Thenceforth I thought thee worth my nearer view

And narrower scrutiny, that I might learn

In what degree or meaning thou art called

The Son of God, which bears no single sense.

The Son of God I also am, or was;

And, if I was, I am; relation stands:

All men are Sons of God; yet thee I thought

In some respect far higher so declared.

Therefore I watched thy footsteps from that hour,

And followed thee still on to this waste wild,

Where, by all best conjectures, I collect

Thou art to be my fatal enemy.

Good reason, then, if I beforehand seek

To understand my adversary, who