Like one that had been led astray To bless the doors from nightly harm. Not tricked and frounced, as she was wont With the Attic boy to hunt, But kerchieft in a comely cloud, 71 While rocking winds are piping loud, Or ushered with a shower still, 80 What worlds or what vast regions hold 90 Or what (though rare) of later age 100 Where the rude axe with heavèd stroke With such consort as they keep, And let some strange mysterious dream And as I wake, sweet music breathe 140 Sent by some Spirit to mortals good, And bring all Heaven before mine eyes. 160 170 SONNET TO THE NIGHTIN GALE (1632-33) This piece and the following one have sometimes been assigned to an earlier date. The identity of their tone with that of the Horton poems seems, in the absence of any definite evidence to the contrary, to warrant placing them here. O NIGHTINGALE that on yon bloomy spray Warblest at eve, when all the woods are still, Thou with fresh hopes the Lover's heart dost fill, While the jolly Hours lead on propitious May. Thy liquid notes that close the eye of Day, First heard before the shallow cuckoo's bill, Portend success in love. O if Jove's will Have linked that amorous power to thy soft lay, Now timely sing, ere the rude bird of hate Foretell my hopeless doom, in some grove nigh; As thou from year to year hast sung too late For my relief, yet had'st no reason why. Whether the Muse or Love call thee his mate, Both them I serve, and of their train am I. SONG ON MAY MORNING Now the bright morning-star, Day's harbinger, Comes dancing from the East, and leads with her The flowery May, who from her green lap throws The yellow cowslip and the pale prim rose. Hail, bounteous May, that dost inspire Mirth, and youth, and warm desire! Woods and groves are of thy dressing; Hill and dale doth boast thy blessing. Thus we salute thee with our early song, And welcome thee, and wish thee long. Which is no more than what is false and vain, And merely mortal dross; For, whenas each thing bad thou hast entombed, And, last of all, thy greedy Self consumed, And joy shall overtake us as a flood; With Truth, and Peace, and Love, shall ever shine About the supreme Throne Of Him, to whose happy-making sight alone When once our heavenly-guided soul shall climb, Then, all this earthly grossness quit, Attired with stars we shall forever sit, Triumphing over Death, and Chance, and thee, O Time! AT A SOLEMN MUSIC BLEST pair of Sirens, pledges of Heaven's joy, Sphere-born harmonious Sisters, Voice and Verse, Wed your divine sounds, and mixed power employ, Dead things with imbreathed sense able to pierce; And to our high-raised phantasy present That undisturbed Song of pure concent, Aye sung before the sapphire - coloured Throne To Him that sits thereon, With saintly shout and solemn jubily; With those just Spirits that wear victorious palms, Hymns devout and holy psalms That we on Earth, with undiscording voice, Broke the fair music that all creatures made To their great Lord, whose love their motions swayed In perfect diapason, whilst they stood To his celestial consort us unite, To live with Him, and sing in endless morn of light! UPON THE CIRCUMCISION (1634) YE flaming Powers, and winged Warriors bright, That erst with music, and triumphant song, I ARCADES AND COMUS In order to understand the task which Milton set himself in the Arcades and in Comus, it will be necessary to glance for a moment at the history of the dramatic form which it represents. The English masque, though it received modifications from native sources, was in the main an Italian product. The southern love of spectacle, united with the Renaissance enthusiasm for classical learning, developed in Italy during the sixteenth century a peculiar species of enter-) tainment, the nearest analogue to which in our own time and country is perhaps the annual Mardi-gras procession at New Orleans. Sometimes the Italian pageants took this precise form of a procession of gorgeously decorated cars moving through the city streets, bearing groups of symbolic figures. Sometimes, on the temporary stage of a ducal ball-room, they took the form of a more coherent series of tableaux, a kind of masque-pageant enlivened by music and dumb-show. Sometimes a connected story was acted out, with elaborate stage devices, and choric and lyric interludes. All these entertainments shared alike the qualities of spectacular gorgeousness and pseudo-classic symbolism. The mythology of Greece and Rome was ransacked for stories which could be suggested by picturesque groups of figures without much action; and upon the devising and mounting of these groups were lavished all the devices of the poet, the sculptor, the engineer, and the costumer. Architects like Palladio did not disdain to design the stage-settings; masters of color like Tintoretto and Veronese painted the scenery; mechanicians like Brunelleschi arranged the machinery; distinguished musicians and choreographs took charge of the dances and songs which enriched the meagre action. All this of course made the masquepageant an expensive form of diversion, open only to rich municipalities, to great guilds or societies, and to courts. It was as an adjunct to courtly merrymakings that the masque proper chiefly flourished. Just as the masque-pageant added to the decorative and mimetic elements of the simple pageant the beguilement of music, instrumental and vocal, so the masque proper added to the masquepageant an element of spoken poetry or recitative, and also gave to the lyric ingredient a greater importance. The services of poets thus came into requisition, and it was at court that the Italian poets were apt to be found. Another reason for the popularity of the masque at court lay in the opportunity which it gave for lords and ladies, who had been blessed with little histrionic genius but with abundant physical beauty, to display themselves in decorative rôles as gods and goddesses, or as abstract virtues and passions. When the masque passed over into England in the sixteenth century, it found there some indigenous forms of entertainment with which it had affinities, such as the pageants of the London Trade Guilds, the Morality plays, and the "mummings" which still survive, if the testimony of Mr. Hardy's Return of the Native is to be taken, in parts of rural England. How far the foreign importation was affected by these native products is uncertain, but there is early noticeable some substantial differences between the English masque and its Italian prototype, due to the peculiar literary conditions of England at the time. Elizabethan drama was just beginning its wonderful career, and a crowd of playwrights stood ready to seize upon any outlet for their talents. It was not long, therefore, before the somewhat crude spectacular displays which marked, for example, the famous visit of Queen Elizabeth to Kenilworth, developed in the hands of such dramatic poets as Dekker, Marston, Heywood, and Chapman into more chastened and coherent forms, with a substantial warp of poetry to hold the structure together. Ben Jonson, who as laureate to King James was expected to furnish one or two masques a year for the court, lifted the form out of the realm of the ephemeral, and made it a vehicle for literature. Somewhere in his burly make-up Ben Jonson hid a deposit of delicate fancy and exquisite song, and he fashioned the airy substance of his masques with love, lavishing upon them vast learning and invention. was fortunate in having as his coadjutors two men of exceptional gifts, Ferrabosco, the King's musician, and Inigo Jones, the King's architect; but Jonson refused stoutly to subordinate his text to the music of the one or to the stage devices of the other. Jonson's example led other poets to give the masque a much more conscientious treatment than it had hitherto received. His work had only to be supplemented by the exquisite lyrical sense of John Fletcher, in his Faithful Shepherdess, and by the magic fancy of Shakespeare, in such masque-like creations as Midsummer Night's Dream and the Tempest, to prepare the instrument wholly for Milton's hand. II He The Arcades is only a fragment, and if it had not been followed by Comus, would be of little interest except for the two or three lovely lyric touches which it contains. But as regards the circumstances of their production, the two poems are intimately connected, and any consideration of the one necessarily includes the other. What those circumstances were has already been briefly stated in the introductory biography. It is there assumed, in accordance with the general belief, that we owe the Arcades to Henry Lawes, the young musician whose name is otherwise imperishably bound up with the lyric poetry of the seventeenth century, since it was he who set to music the songs of Carew, Lovelace, Herrick, and other poets of his day. Biographers have attempted to prove, with partial success, that Milton was personally known to the Bridgewater family, and received the invitation to contribute to the Harefield masque directly from them. The matter is of small importance; certainly, from whatever source it came, the invitation cannot but have been welcome to the young poet, for several reasons. In the first place, the Countess Dowager of Derby, in whose honor the masque was performed, had been, in her youth, the friend of Milton's darling poet, Spenser, who indeed claimed kinship with her family, the Spencers of Althorpe. To her elder sisters Spenser had dedicated his Muiopotmos and his Mother Hubberd's Tale, and to herself his Tears of the Muses. Such a connection would have been enough to throw about the venerable lady to Milton's eyes a halo of romantic interest, even had not her subsequent relations with literary men made it possible for Warton to say that "the peerage-book of this lady is the literature of her age." At the fine old estate of Harefield, she and her second husband, Sir Thomas Egerton, had been visited by Queen Elizabeth, and the stately avenue of elms in which the Arcades was afterwards presented derived its name of the "Queen's Walk" from a masque of welcome which was presented there on that occasion. A widow since 1617, the Countess Dowager lived in stately retirement at Harefield, engaged in works of charity. Three groups of grandchildren surrounded |