Skip and trip it on the green,

And help to choose the Summer Queen ;
Lash out at a country feast

Their silver penny with the best.

Well can they judge of nappy ale,
And tell at large a winter tale;
Climb up to the apple loft,

And turn the crabs till they be soft.
Tib is all the father's joy,

And little Tom the mother's boy :

:

10

All their pleasure is, Content,

15

And care, to pay their yearly rent.

Joan can call by name her cows

And deck her windows with green boughs;
She can wreaths and tutties make,

And trim with plums a bridal cake.

20

Jack knows what brings gain or loss,

And his long flail can stoutly toss :
Makes the hedge which others break,
And ever thinks what he doth speak.

-Now, you courtly dames and knights,
That study only strange delights,
Though you scorn the homespun gray,
And revel in your rich array;
Though your tongues dissemble deep

And can your heads from danger keep;
Yet, for all your pomp and train,
Securer lives the silly swain !

T. Campion.

LX.

CXLIV.

L'ALLEGRO.

HENCE, loathed Melancholy,

Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born

In Stygian cave forlorn

'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights

unholy !

Find out some uncouth cell,

5

Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings,

And the night-raven sings;

There, under ebon shades and low-browed rocks,
As ragged as thy locks,

In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell.

But come, thou Goddess fair and free,
In heaven yclept Euphrosyne,

And by men heart-easing Mirth;
Whom lovely Venus, at a birth,
With two sister Graces more,

10

15

So buxom, blithe, and debonair.

Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee
Jest, and youthful jollity,

Quips and cranks and wanton wiles,
Nods and becks and wreathed smiles,

Such as hang on Hebe's cheek,
And love to live in dimple sleek;

Sport that wrinkled Care derides,
And 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 thee honour due,
Mirth, admit me of thy crew,

To live with her, and live with thee,
In unreproved pleasures free ;
To hear the lark begin his flight,
And, singing, startle the dull night,
From his watch-tower in the skies,
Till the dappled dawn doth rise,
Then to come, in spite of sorrow,
And at my window bid good-morrow,
Through the sweet-briar or the vine,
Or the twisted eglantine;

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40

45

While the cock, with lively din,

Scatters the rear of darkness thin;

50

And to the stack, or the barn-door,

Stoutly struts his dames before :

Oft listening how the hounds and horn
Cheerly rouse the slumbering morn,
From the side of some hoar hill,

55

Through the high wood echoing shrill
Sometime walking, not unseen,
By hedgerow elms, on hillocks green,
Right against the eastern gate
Where the great Sun begins his state,
Robed in flames and amber light,
The clouds in thousand liveries dight;
While the ploughman, near at hand,
Whistles o'er the furrowed land,
And the milkmaid singeth blithe,
And the mower whets his scythe,

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65

And every shepherd tells his tale

Under the hawthorn in the dale.

Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures,
Whilst the landskip round it measures:
Russet lawns, and fallows gray,
Where the nibbling flocks do stray;
Mountains on whose barren breast
The labouring clouds do often rest ;
Meadows trim, with daisies pied;
Shallow brooks, and rivers wide;
Towers and battlements it sees
Bosomed high in tufted trees,
Where perhaps some beauty lies,
The cynosure of neighbouring eyes.
Hard by a cottage chimney smokes
From betwixt two aged oaks,
Where Corydon and Thyrsis met
Are at their savoury dinner set

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80

And young and old come forth to play
On a sunshine holiday,

Till the livelong daylight fail :

Then to the spicy nut-brown ale,

100

With stories told of many a feat,

How Faery Mab the junkets eat.

She was pinched and pulled, she said;
And he, by Friar's lantern led,
Tells how the drudging goblin sweat
To earn his cream-bowl duly set,

When in one night, ere glimpse of morn,

105

His shadowy flail had threshed the corn

That ten day-labourers could not end;
Then lies him down, the lubber fiend,

110

And, stretched 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 matin rings.

Thus done the tales, to bed they creep,

115

By whispering winds soon lulled asleep.
Towered cities please us then,

To win her grace, whom all commend.
There let Hymen oft appear

125

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.

130

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,

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Lap me in soft Lydian airs,

Married to immortal verse,

Such as the meeting soul may pierce,