LXI.

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

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The hidden soul of harmony;

That Orpheus' self may heave his head

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From golden slumber on a bed

Of heaped Elysian flowers, and hear

Such strains as would have won the ear
Of Pluto to have quite set free

His half-regained Eurydice.
These delights if thou canst give,
Mirth, with thee I mean to live.

J. Milton.

IL PENSEROSO.

HENCE, vain deluding Joys,

The brood of Folly without father bred!
How little you bested,

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CXLV.

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

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And fancies fond with gaudy shapes possess,
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 !

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Hail, divinest Melancholy !

Whose saintly visage is too bright

To hit the sense of human sight,

And therefore to our weaker view

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O'erlaid with black, staid Wisdom's hue;
Black, but such as in esteem

Prince Memnon's sister might beseem,

Or that starred Ethiop queen that strove

To set her beauty's praise above

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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,

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And looks commercing with the skies,
Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes.
There, held in holy passion still,

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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,

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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;

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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 hist along,
'Less Philomel will deign a song,

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In her sweetest saddest plight,

Smoothing the rugged brow of Night,

While Cynthia checks her dragon yoke

Gently o'er the accustomed oak.

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Sweet bird, that shunn'st the noise of folly,

Most musical, most melancholy !

Thee, chauntress, oft the woods among

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I woo, to hear thy even-song;

And, missing thee, I walk unseen
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,

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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
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 septred pall come sweeping by,
Presenting Thebes, 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 Museus from his bower;
Or bid the soul of Orpheus sing
Such notes as, warbled to the string,
Drew iron tears down Pluto's cheek,

Where more is meant than meets the ear.
Thus, Night, oft see me in thy pale career,
Till civil-suited Morn appear,

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Not tricked and frounced, as she was wont

With the Attic boy to hunt,

But kerchieft 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,
Of pine, or monumental oak,

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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,

And let some strange mysterious dream
Wave at his wings, in airy stream