Poem 1

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 Worshipped 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, the obscene dread of Moab’s Sons, From Aroer to Nebo, and the wild Of Southmost Abarim; in Hesebon And Heronaim, Seon’s realm, beyond The flowery dale of Sibma clad with vines, And Eleale to the 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 tied 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 aery 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 Astarte, Queen of Heaven, with crescent horns; To whose bright image nightly by the moon Sidonian virgins paid their vows and songs; In Zion also not unsung, where stood Her temple on the offensive mountain, built By that uxorious king, whose heart though large, Beguiled by fair