n dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell. t come, thou Goddess fair and free, heaven yclep'd Euphrosyne, d by men heart-easing Mirth, som lovely Venus at a birth, ith two sister Graces more, ivy-crowned Bacchus bore; whether (as some sages sing) e frolic wind that breathes the spring, hyr, with Aurora playing, he met her once a-Maying, ere on beds of violets blue,

d fresh-blown roses wash'd in dew, I'd her with thee, a daughter fair, buxom, blithe, and debonair; ste thee, nymph, and bring with thee -t and youthful Jollity,

ips, and cranks, and wanton wiles, ods, and becks, and wreathed smiles, ch as hang on Hebe's cheek,

d love to live in dimple sleek ; ort, that wrinkled care derides, d Laughter holding both his sides:

Come, and trip it as you go On the light fantastic toe,

And in thy right hand lead with thee
The mountain nymph, sweet Liberty;
And, if I give the honour due,
Mirth, admit me of thy crew,
To live with her, and live with thee,
To hear the lark begin his flight,
In unreproved pleasures free;
From his watch-tow'r in the skies,
And singing, startle the dull night,
Till the dapple dawn doth rise;
Then to come, in spite of sorrow,
And at my window bid good-morrow,
Through the sweet-brier or the vine,
Or the twisted eglantine:
While the cock with lively din
Scatters the rear of darkness thin,
And to the stack, or the barn-door,
Stoutly struts his dames before:
Oft list'ning how the hounds and horn
Cheerly rouse the slumb`ring morn,
From the side of some hoar hill,
Through the high wood echoing shrill:
Some time walking, not unseen,
By hedgerow elms, on hillocks green,
Right against the eastern gate,
Where the great sun begins his state,
Rob'd in flames, and amber light,
The clouds in thousand liveries dight;
While the ploughman near at hand
Whistles o'er the furrow'd land,
And the milk-maid singeth blithe,
And the mower whets his scythe,

Y y2

And ev'ry shepherd tells his tale Under the hawthorn in the dale. Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures Whilst the landscape round it measures; Russet lawns, and fallows grey, Where the nibbling flocks do stray; Mountains, on whose barren breast The lab'ring clouds do often rest; Meadows trim with daisies pied, Shallow brooks, and rivers wide. Tow'rs and battlements it sees, Bosom'd high in tufted trees, Where perhaps some beauty lies, The Cynosure of neighb'ring eyes. Hard by, a cottage-chimney smokes From betwixt two aged oaks, Where Corydon and Thyrsis met, Are at their savoury dinner set Of herbs, and other country messes, Which the neat-handed Phillis dresses; And then in haste her bow'r she leaves, With Thestylis to bind the sheaves; Or, if the earlier season lead, To the tann'd haycock in the mead. Sometimes with secure delight The upland hamlets will invite, When the merry bells ring round, And the jocund rebecks sound To many a youth and many a maid, Dancing in the chequer'd shade; And young and old come forth to play On a sunshine holy-day, Till the live-long day-light fail; Then to the spicy nut-brown ale, With stories told of many a feat, How fairy Mab the junkets eat; She was pinch'd and pull'd, she said, And by the fryer's lanthorn led; Tells how the drudging gobling sweat, To earn his cream-bowl duly set, When, in one night, ere glimpse of morn, His shadowy flail hath thresh'd the corn, That ten day-lab'rers could not end; Then lies hím down the lubber fiend, And, stretch'd out all the chimney's length, Basks at the fire his hairy strength; And crop full out of doors he flings, Ere the first cock his mattin rings. Thus done the tales, to bed they creep. By whisp'ring winds soon lull'd asleep. Tow'red cities please us then, And the busy hum of men, Where throngs of knights and barons bold In weeds of peace high triumphs hold, With store of ladies, whose bright eyes Rain influence, and judge the prize Of wit, or arms, while both contend To win her grace whom all commend: There let Hymen oft appear In saffron robe, with taper clear, And pomp, and feast, and revelry, With mask, and antique pageantry; Such sights as youthful poets dream On summer eves by haunted stream.

Then to the well-trod stage anon,
If Jonson's learned sock be on,
Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child,
Warble his native wood-notes wild.
And ever against eating cares,
Lap me in soft Lydian airs,
Married to immortal verse,

Such as the meeting soul may pierce,
In notes with many a winding bout
Of linked sweetness long drawn out.
With wanton heed, and giddy cunning,
The melting voice through mazes running!
Untwisting all the chains that tie
The hidden soul of harmony;
That Orpheus' self may heave his head
From golden slumber on a bed
Of heap'd Elysian flow'rs, and hear
Such strains as would have won the ear
Of Pluto, to have quite set free
His half-regain'd Eurydice.
These delights, if thou canst give,
Mirth, with thee I mean to live.

§ 2. IL PENSEROSO. MILTON. HENCE, vain deluding joys,

The brood of folly, without father bred,
How little you bested,

Or fill the fixed mind with all your toys!
Dwell in some idle brain,

And fancies fond with gaudy shapes possese,
As thick and numberless

As the gay motes that people the sun-beams, Or likest hovering dreams,

The fickle pensioners of Morpheus' train.
But hail, thou Goddess sage and holy!
Hail, divinest Melancholy!
Whose saintly visage is too bright
To hit the sense of human sight;
And therefore to our weaker view
O'erlaid with black, staid Wisdom's hue;
Black, but such as in esteem
Prince Memnon's sister might beseem;
Or that starr'd Ethiop queen that strove
To set her beauty's praise above
The sea-nymphs and their powers offended
Yet thou art higher far descended;
Thee bright-hair'd Vesta long of yore
To solitary Saturn bore;

His daughter she (in Saturn's reign
Such mixture was not held a stain).
Oft in glimmering bowers and glades
He met her, and in secret shades
Of woody Ida's inmost grove,
While yet there was no fear of Jove,
Come, pensive Nun, devout and pure,
Sober, stedfast, and demure,
All in a robe of darkest grain,
Flowing with majestic train,
And sable stole of Cyprus lawn,
Over thy decent shoulders drawn.
Come, but keep thy wonted state,
With even step, and musing gait,

And

And may at last my weary age
Find out the peaceful hermitage,
The hairy gown and mossy cell,
Where I may sit and rightly spell
Of ev'ry star that heaven doth shew,
And ev'ry herb that sips the dew;
Till old experience do attain
To something like prophetic strain.
These pleasures, Melancholy, give,
And I with thee will choose to live.

§ 3. LYCIDAS. MILTON. YET once more, Oye Laurels, and once more, Ye Myrtles brown, with Ivy never sere, I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude, And with forc'd fingers rude, Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year; Bitter constraint, and sad occasion dear, Compels me to disturb your season due, For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime, Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer: Who would not sing for Lycidas? he knew Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhime. He must not float upon his wat'ry bier Unwept, and welter to the parching wind, Without the meed of some melodious tear.

Begin then, sisters of the sacred well,
That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring,
Begin, and somewhat loudly sweep the string.
Hence with denial vain, and coy excuse,
So may some gentle Muse

With lucky words favour my destin'd urn;
And, as she passes, turn,

And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud.
For we were nurst upon the self-same hill,
Fed the same flock, by fountain, shade, and rill.
Together both, ere the high lawns appear'd
Under the opening eye-lids of the morn,
We drove afield, and both together heard
What time the grey-fly winds her sultry horn,
Batt'ning our flocks with the fresh dews of night,
Oft till the star that rose at evening bright
Tow'rd heaven's descent had slop'd his west'ring
wheel.

Meanwhile the rural ditties were not mute,
Temper'd to the oaten flute;

Rough Satyrs danc'd, and Fauns with cloven heel
From the glad sound would not be absent long,
And old Damætis lov'd to hear our song.

But, O the heavy change! now thou art gone, Now thou art gone, and never must return! Thee, Shepherd, thee the woods, and desert caves With wild thy meand the gadding vine o'ergrown, And all their echoes, mourn.

The willows, and the hazel copses green,
Shall now no more be seen
Fanning their joyous leaves to thy soft lays,
As killing as the canker to the rose,
Or taint-worm to the weaning herds that graze;
Or frost to flow'rs, that their gay wardrobe wear,
When first the white-thorn blows;
Such, Lycidas, thy loss to shepherds' ear.

Where were ye, Nymphs, when the remorseless Clos'd o'er the head of your lov'd Lycidas? [deep For neither were ye playing on the steep, Where your old Bards, the famous Druids, lie, Nor on the shaggy top of Mona high, Nor yet where Deva spreads her wisard stream: Ah me, I fondly dream! [done! Had ye been there for what could that bare What could the Muse herself that Orpheus bare, The Muse herself for her enchanting son, Whom universal nature did lament, When by the rout that made the hideous roar, His gory visage down the stream was sent, Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore?

Alas! what boots it with incessant care
To tend the homely, slighted shepherd's trade,
And strictly meditate the thankle's Muse?
Were it not better done, as others use,
To sport with Amaryllis in the shade,
Or with the tangles of Neæra's hair?
Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise
(That last infirinity of noble minds)
To scorn delights, and live laborious days;
But the fair guerdon when we hope to find,
And think to burst out into sudden blaze,
Comes the blind Fury with th' abhorred shears,
And slits the thin-spun life. But not the praise.
Phoebus replied, and touch'd my trembling ears;
Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil,
Nor in the glist'ring foil,

Set off to the world; nor in broad rumour lies,
But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes.
And perfect witness of all-judging Jove:
As he pronounces lastly on each deed,
Of so much fame in heaven expect thy meed.

O fountain Arethuse, and thou honour'd fled Smooth-sliding Mincius, crown'd with ve That strain I heard was of a higher mood: [rects But now my oat proceeds,

And listens to the herald of the sea
That came in Neptune's plea ;
He ask'd the waves, and ask'd the felon winds,
What hard mishaphath doom'd this gentleswain
And question'd ev'ry gust of rugged winds
That blows from off each beaked promontory,
They knew not of his story,

And sage Hippodates their answer brings,
That not a blast was from his dungeon stray,
The air was calm, and on the level brine
Sleek Panope with all her sisters play'd.
It was that fatal and perfidious bark
Built in th' eclipse, and rigg'd with curses dark,
That sunk so low that sacred head of thine.

Next Camus, reverend sire! went footing slow,
His mantle hairy, and his bonnet sedge,
Inwrought with figures dim, and on the edg
Like to that sanguine flow'r inscrib'd with wee
Ah! who lath reft (quoth he) my dearest pledge!
Last came, and last did go,
The pilot of the Galilean lake;
Two massy keys he bore of metals twain,
(The golden opes, the iron shuts amain)
He shook his mitred locks, and stern bespake,
How well could I have spar'd for thee, yong
swain.
Enow