25

30

95

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100

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Or let my lamp, at midnight hour, 85
Be seen in some high lonely tower,
Where I may oft outwatch the Bear,
With thrice great Hermes," or unsphere
The spirit of Plato, to unfold
What worlds or what vast regions hold 90
The immortal mind that hath forsook
Her mansion in this fleshly nook;
And of those demons that are found
In fire, air, flood, or underground,
Whose power hath a true consent
With planet or with element.
Sometime let gorgeous Tragedy
In sceptred pall come sweeping by,
Presenting Thebes, 10 or Pelops' line,
Or the tale of Troy divine,
Or what (though rare) of later age
Ennobled hath the buskined stage.

But, O sad Virgin! that thy power
Might raise Musæus12 from his bower;
Or bid the soul of Orpheus sing
Such notes as, warbled to the string,
Drew iron tears down Pluto's cheek,
And made Hell grant what love did seek;
Or call up him that left half-told
The story of Cambuscan13 bold,

110
Of Camball, and of Algarsife,
And who had Canace to wife,
That owned the virtuous ring and glass,
And of the wondrous horse of brass
On which the Tartar king did ride;
And if aught else great bards beside
In sage and solemn tunes have sung,
Of turneys, and of trophies hung,
Of forests, and enchantments drear,
Where more is meant than meets the ear.

Thus, Night, oft see me in thy pale career, Till civil-suited Morn appear, Not tricked and frounced, as she was wont With the Attic boy14 to hunt, But kercheft in a comely cloud, While rocking winds are piping loud, Or ushered with a shower still, When the gust hath blown his fill, Ending on the rustling leaves, With minute-drops from off the eaves. And, when the sun begins to fling His flaring beams, me, Goddess, bring To arched walks of twilight groves, And shadows brown, that Sylvan loves,

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The Sea-Nymphs, and their powers offended.
Yet thou art higher far descended:
Thee bright-haired 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,
Whilst yet there was no fear of Jove.

Come, pensive Nun, devout and pure,
Sober, steadfast, and demure,
All in a robe of darkest grain,
Flowing with majestic train,
And sable stole of cypress lawn
Over thy decent shoulders drawn.
Come; but keep thy wonted state,
With even step, and musing gait,
And looks commercing with the skies,
Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes:
There, held in holy passion still,
Forget thyself to marble, till
With a sad leaden downward cast
Thou fix them on the earth as fast.
And join with thee calm Peace and Quiet,
Spare Fast, that oft with gods doth diet,
And hears the Muses in a ring
Aye round about Jove's altar sing;
And add to these retired Leisure,
That in trim gardens takes his pleasure;
But, first and chiefest, with thee bring
Him that yon soars on golden wing,
Guiding the fiery-wheeled throne,
The Cherub Contemplation;
And the mute Silence hists along,
'Less Philomel will deign a song,
In her sweetest saddest plight,
Smoothing the rugged brow of Night,
While Cynthia checks her dragon yoke
Gently o'er the accustomed oak.
Sweet bird, that shunn'st the noise of folly,
Most musical, most melancholy!
Thee, chauntress, oft the woods among
I woo, to hear thy even-song;
And, missing thee, I walk unseen

65
On the dry smooth-shaven green,
To behold the wandering moon,
Riding near her highest noon,
Like one that had been led astray
Through the heaven's wide pathless way,
And oft, as if her head she bowed,
Stooping through a fleecy cloud.

Oft, on a plat of rising ground,
I hear the far-off curfew sound,
Over some wide-watered shore,
Swinging slow with sullen roar;
'Or, if the air will not permit,
Some still removed place will fit,
Where glowing embers through the room
Teach light to counterfeit a gloom,
Far from all resort of mirth,
Save the cricket on the hearth,
Or the bellman's drowsy charm
To bless the doors from nightly harm.

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60

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Dever

75

" The constellation of Ursa Major, which sets.

? Hermes Trismegistus (i. e., superlatively or thrice great), an Egyptian god to whom many mystical books were ascribed.

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Of pine, or monumental oak,
Where the rude axe with heavèd stroke
Was never heard the nymphs to daunt,
Or fright them from their hallowed haunt.
There, in close covert, by some brook,
Where no profaner eye may look,
Hide me from day's garish eye,
While the bee with honied thigh,
That at her flowry work doth sing,
And the waters murmuring,
With such consort15 as they keep,
Entice the dewy-feathered Sleep.
And let some strange mysterious dream
Wave at his wings, in airy stream
Of lively portraiture displayed,
Softly on my eyelids laid;
And, as I wake, sweet music breathe
Above, about, or underneath,
Sent by some Spirit to mortals good,
Or the unseen Genius of the wood.

But let my due feet never fail
To walk the studious cloister's pale,
And love the high embowed roof,
With antique pillars massy-proof,
And storied windows16 richly dight,
Casting a dim religious light.
There let the pealing organ blow
To the full-voiced quire below.
In service high and anthems clear,
As may with sweetness, through mine ear,
Dissolve me into esctasies,
And bring all heaven before mine eyes.

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 every star that heaven doth shew,
And every 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.

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SONG. SABRINA FAIR

(From the same) Sabrina' fair,

Listen where thou art sitting
Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave,

In twisted braids of lilies knitting
The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair;

Listen for dear honour's sake,
Goddess of the silver lake,

Listen and save!
Listen, and appear to us,
In name of great Oceanus.
By the earth-shaking Neptune's mace,
And Tethys' grave majestic pace;

870
By hoary Nereus' wrinkled look,
And the Carpathian wizard's? hook;
By scaly Triton's winding shell,
And old soothsaying Glaucus' spell;
By Leucothea's lovely hands,

875 And her son that rules the strands; By Thetis' tinsel-slippered feet, And the songs of Sirens sweet; By dead Parthenope's dear tomb, And fair Ligea's golden comb,

880 Wherewith she sits on diamond rocks Sleeking her soft alluring locks; By all the Nymphs that nightly dance Upon thy streams with wily glance; Rise, rise, and heave thy rosy head From thy coral-paven bed, And bridle in thy headlong wave, Till thou our summons answered'have.

Listen and save!

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LYCIDASI

(1638) Yet once more,2 () ye laurels, and once more, Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere, I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude, And with forced fingers rude Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year.5 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

1 A legendary British princess, who became the goddess of the river Severn.

2 Proteus, a sea-god, who had the power of changing his shape. He had a hook (i. e. shepherd's crook) "because he was the shepherd of the sea-calves."

1 Lycidas is a lament for the death of Edward King, a young man of much promise who had been a fellowstudent of Milton at Cambridge some five years before. King was drowned while on his way to Ireland, --the ship striking a hidden rock off the Welsh coast and going down in a calm sea.

? Milton had probably written no poetry since Comus, produced three years earlier (1634).

10

15 Concert, agreement.

is Stained glass windows with scenes illustrative of sacred story.

"A river celebrated for its winding course (hence our verb to meander).

? The two brothers of the singer, from whom she has been accidentally separated.

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“Had ye been there," . . . for what could

that have done? What could the Muse herself that Orpheus

bore, The Muse herself, for her enchanting son, Whom universal nature did lament,

60 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 uncessant care To tend the homely, slighted, shepherd's trade, And strictly meditate the thankless Muse? 66 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 infirmity of noble mind) 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 Furyl with the abhorred

shears, And slits the thin-spun life. “But not the

praise,” Phæbus replied, and touched my trembling “Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil, Nor in the glistering foil Set off to the world, nor in broad rumor lies, 80 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, 11 and thou honoured

flood, Smooth-sliding Mincius, 11 crowned with vocal

reeds, That strain I heard was of a higher mood. But now my oat proceeds, And listens to the Herald of the Sea, 12 That came in Neptune's plea. He asked the waves, and asked the felon winds, What hard mishap hath doomed this gentle

swain? And questioned every gust of rugged wings That blows from off each bleaked promontory. They knew not of his story;

95 And sage Hippotades13 their answer brings, That not a blast was from his dungeon strayed: The air was calm, and on the level brine Sleek Panopel4 with all her sisters played. It was that fatal and perfidious bark, 100

Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme.
He must not float upon his watery bier
Unwept, and welter to the parching wind,
Without the meed of some melodious tear.

Begin, then, Sisters of the sacred well 15
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 destined urn, 20
And as he passes turn,
And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud!

For we were nursed upon the self-same hill, Fed the same flock, by fountain, shade, and rill; Together both, ere the high lawns appeared Under the opening eyelids of the Morn, We drove a-field, and both together heard What time the gray-fly winds her sultry horn, Battening our flocks with the fresh dews of

night, Oft till the star that rose at evening bright Toward heaven's descent had sloped his

westering wheel. Meanwhile the rural ditties were not mute; Tempered to the oaten flute, Rough Satyrs danced, and Fauns with cloven

heel From the glad sound would not be absent long; And old Damætas loved to hear our song. But, oh! 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 thyme and the gadding vine o'ergrown,

40 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,

45 Or taint-worm to the weanling herds that graze, Or frost to flowers that their gay wardrobe wcar When first the white-thorn blows; Such, Lycidas, thy loss to shepherd's car. Where were ye, Nymphs, when the remorseless deep

50 Closed o'er the head of your loved Lycidas? For neither were ye playing on the steeps Where your old bards, the famous Druids, lie, Nor on the shaggy top of Mona® high, Nor yet where Deva? spreads her wizard stream.

55 Ay me! I fondly dream

ears:

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& The Muse hersels= Calliope. Orpheus was torn in pieces by the Thracian women at a Bacchanalian festival, his limbs strewn upon the plain, and his head cast into the river Hebrus.

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That shrunk thy streams; return Sicilian Muse
And call the vales, and bid them hither cast
Their bells and flowerets of a thousand hues. 135
Ye valleys low, where the mild whispers use
Of shades, and wanton winds, and gushing

brooks, On whose fresh lap the swart star24 sparely

looks, Throw hither all your quaint enamelled eyes, That on the green turf suck the honeyed

showers, And purple all the ground with vernal flowers. Bring the rathe25 primrose that forsaken dies, The tufted crow-toe, and pale jessamine, The white pink, and the pansy freaked 28 with

jet, The glowing violet, The musk-rose, and the well-attired woodbine, With cowslips wan that hang the pensive

head, And every flower that sad embroiderywears; Bid amaranthus all his beauty shed, And daffadillies fill their cups with tears, To strew the laureate hearse where Lycid lies. For so, to interpose a little ease, Let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise, 28 Ay me! whilst thee the shores and sounding Wash far away, where'er thy bones are hurled; Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides, Where thou perhaps under the whelming tide Visit'st the bottom of the monstrous world;29 Or whether thou, to our moist vows denied, Sleep'st by the fable of Bellerus30 old, Where the great Vision of the guarded mount: Looks toward Namancos and Bayona's hold. Look homeward, Angel, now, and melt with

ruth: And, o ye dolphins, waft the hapless youth. Weep no more, woeful shepherds, weep no

more,
For Lycidas, your sorrow, is not dead,
Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor.
So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed,

non repairs his drooping head, And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled

seas

Built in the eclipse, 15 and rigged with curses

dark, That sunk so low that sacred head of thine. Next, Camus, 18 reverend sire, went footing

slow, His mantle hairy, and his bonnet sedge, 104 Inwrought with figures dim, and on the edge Like to that sanguine flower17 inscribed with

woe. "Ah! who hath reft," quoth he, "my dearest

pledge?” Last came, and last did

go, The Pilot of the Galilean Lake;18 . Two massy keys he bore of metals twain 110 (The golden opes, the iron shuts amain.) 19 He shook his mitred locks, and stern bespake:-“How well could I have spared for thee, young

swain, Enow of such as, for their bellies' sake, Creep, and intrude, and climb into the fold! 115 Of other care they little reckoning make Than how to scramble at the shearers' feast, And shove away the worthy bidden guest. Blind mouths! that scarce themselves know how

to hold A sheep-hook, or have learnt aught else the least

120 That to the faithful herdman's art belongs! What recks it them? What need they? They

are sped;20 And, when they list, their lean and flashy songs Grate on their scrannel21 pipes of wretched

straw; The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed, 125 But, swoln with wind and the rank mist they

draw. Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread; Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw, Daily devours apace, and nothing said. But that two-handed engine22 at the door 130 Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more."

Return, Alpheus, 23 the dread voice is past

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And yet

ore

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