The Works of the English Poets, from Chaucer to Cowper

Nor that where Biblis dropt, too fondly light, Her tears and self, may dare compare with this; Which here beginning 1, down a lake descends, [fends, Whose rocky channel these fair streams deTill it the precious wave through all the isle dispends.

"Many fair rivers 17 take their heads from either, (Both from the lake, and from the milky well) Which still in loving channels run together, Fach to his mate, a neighbour parallel :

Thus widely spread with friendly combination, They fling about their wondrous operation, And give to every part both motion and sensation. "This silver lake, first from th' head-city

springing,

To that bright fount four little channels sends; Through which it thither plenteous water bringing, Straight all again to every place dispends:

Such is the head city, such the prince's hall; Such, and much more, which strangely liberal, Though sense it never had, yet gives all sense to all. "Of other stuff the suburbs have their framing;

May seem soft marble, spotted red and white: First 19 stands an arch, pale Cynthia's brightness shaming,

The city's fore-front, cast in silver bright:

At whose proud base, are built two watching tow'rs, [pow'rs, Whence hate and love skirmish with equal When smiling gladness shines, and sudden sorrow show'rs.

"Here 20 sits retir'd the silent reverence;

And when the prince, incens'd with anger's fire, Thunders aloud, he darts his lightning hence: Here dusky reddish clouds foretel his ire;

Of nothing can this isle more boast aright: A twin-born sun, a double seeing light; With much delight they see; are seen with much delight.

"That Thracian shepherd " call'd them nature's glass;

Yet than a glass, in this much worthier being: Blind glasses represent some near set face,

But this a living glass, both seen and seeing: Like Heav'n 22 in moving, like in heav'nly firing: [spiring : Sweet heat and light, no burning flame inYet, ah! too oft we find, they scorch with hot desiring.

15 This pith, or marrow, springing in the brain, flows down through the back bone.

17 All the nerves imparting all sense and motion to the whole body, have their rout partly from the brain, and partly from the back bone.

The pith of the back bone, springing from the brain, whence, by four passages, it is conveyed into the back; and there all four join in one, and again are thence divided into divers others.

19 The first part of the face is the forehead, at whose base are the eyes.

"They, mounted high, sit on a lofty bill;
(For they the prince's best intelligence,
And quickly warn of future good, or ill)
Here stands the palace of the noblest sense:
Here Visus 23 keeps, whose court, than crystal
smoother,
[brother,
And clearer seems; he, though a younger
Yet far more noble is, far fairer than the other.

"Six bands are set to stir the moving tow'r:
The first the proud band call'd, that lifts it

high'r;

The next the humble band, that shoves it low'r;
The bibbing third, draws it together nigh'r;
The fourth disdainful, oft away is moving:
The other two, helping the compass roving,
Are called the circling trains and wanton bands of
loving.

"Above, two compass groves 25 (love's bended
bows)
[place:
Before, a wall 26, deluding rushing foes,
Which fence the tow'rs from floods of higher

That shuts and opens in a moment's space:
The low part fix'd, the higher quick de-
scending;
(tending,
Upon whose tops, spearmen their pikes in-
Watch there both night and day, the castle's port
defending.

"Three divers lakes 27 within these bulwarks lie,
The noblest parts, and instruments of sight:
The first, receiving forms of bodies nigh,
Conveys them to the next, and breaks the light,
Daunting his rash, and forcible invasion;
And with a clear and whitish inundation,
Restrains the nimble spirits from their too quick

evasion.

"In midst of both is plac'd the crystal 28 pond;
Whose living water thick, and brightly shining,
Like sapphires, or the sparkling diamond,

His inward beams with outward light combining,
Alt'ring itself to every shape's aspect;
The divers forms doth further still direct,
Till by the nimble post they're bronght to th'
intellect.

"The third", like molten glass, all clear and
white,

Both round embrace the noble crystalline.

21 Visus, or the sight, is the most noble above all the senses.

24 There are six muscles moving the eye, thus termed by anatomists.

25 Above the eye-brows, keeping off the sweat, that it fall not into the eyes.

26 The eye-lids shutting the eye are two; the lower ever unmoved in man; and hairs keeping off dust, flies, &c.

27 There are three humours in the eye: the first the watery, breaking the too vehement light, and stopping the spirits from going out too fast.

23 The second is the crystalline, and most noble,

20 The eyes are the index of the mind, discover-seated and compassed between the other two, and ing every affection.

Orpheus, called the looking glass of nature. 22 Plato affirmed them lighted up with heavenly Are, not burning but shining.

being altered by the entering shapes, is the chief instrument of sight.

29 The third, from the likeness, is called the glassy humour.

Six inward walls

The first, most shrine,

And girts the castle with a close embrace, Save in the midst, is left a circle's space, Where light, and hundred shapes, flock out and in apace.

"The second" not so massy as the oth'r,

Yet thicker than the rest, and tougher fram'd,
Takes his beginning from that harder moth'r;
The outward part like horn, and thence is nam'd;
Through whose translucent sides much light
is borne

Into the tow'r, and much kept out by th' horn;
Makes it a pleasant light, much like the ruddy

morn.

"The third 32 of softer mold, is like a grape,

Which all entwines with his encircling side:
In midst, a window lets in every shape;
Which with a thought is narrow made, or wide:
His inmost side more black than starless night;
But outward part (how like an hypocrite!)
As painted Iris looks, with various colours dight.
"The fourth" of finest work, more slight and thin,
Than, or Arachne (which in silken twine
With Pallas strove) or Pallas' self could spin:
This round enwraps the fountain crystalline.

The next is made out of that milky spring,
That from the Cephal mount his waves doth
fling,

Like to a curious net his substance scattering.
"His substance as the head-spring perfect white;

Here thousand nimble spies are round dispread:
The forms caught in this net, are brought to sight,
And to his eye are lively pourtrayed.

The last the glassy wall that round encasing The moat of glass, is nam'd from that enlacing, The white and glassy wells parts with his strict embracing.

"Thus then is fram'd the noble Visus' bow'r ;

Th' outward light by the first wall's circle send

ing

“Much as an one-eyed room, hung all with night,
(Only that side, which adverse to his eye
Gives but one narrow passage to the light,

Is spread with some white shining tapestry),
An hundred shapes that through flit ayers

stray,

Shove boldly in, crowding that narrow way, And on that bright-fac'd wall obscurely dancing play.

"Two pair of rivers from the head-spring flow, To these two tow'rs, the first in their mid-race (The spies conveying) twisted jointly go, Strength'ning each other with a firm embrace. The other pair ", these walking tow'rs are moving:

At first but one, then in two channels roving: And therefore both agree in standing or removing. "Auditus, second of the pentarchy,

Is next, not all so noble as his brother;
Yet of more need, and more commodity:
His seat is plac'd somewhat below the other:
Of each side of the mount a double care;
Both which a goodly portal doth embrave,
And winding entrance, like Mæander's erring wave.
"The portal" hard and dry, all hung around
With silken, thin, carnation tapestry;
Whose open gate drags in each voice and sound,
That through the shaken air passes by:

The entrance winding, lest some violence
Might fright the judge with sudden influence,
Or some unwelcome guest might vex the busy sense.
"This cave's 40 first part, fram'd with a steep
[ascent
(For in four parts 'tis fitly severed)
Makes th' entrance hard, but easy the descent:
Where stands a braced drum, whose sounding
head

(Obliquely plac'd) struck by the circling air, Gives instant warning of each sound's repair, Which soon is thence convey'd into the judgment chair.

"The drum" is made of substance hard and thin:
Which if some falling moisture chance to wet,
The loudest sound is hardly heard within:
But if it once grows thick, with stubborn let,
It bars all passage to the inner room;
No sounding voice unto his seat may come :
The lazy sense still sleeps, unsummon'd with his
drum.

His beams and hundred forms into the tow'r,
The wall of horn, and that black gate transcend-

Is light'ned by the brightest crystalline, [ing,
And fully view'd in that white netty shine
From thence with speedy haste is posted to the
mind.

30 There are six tunicles belonging to the eye; the first, called the conjunctive, solid, thick, compassing the whole eye, but only the black window.

The second is cornea or horny tunicle, transparent, and made of the hard mother.

32 The third is uvea, or grapy, made of the tender mother, thin and pervious by a little and round window; it is diversely coloured without, but exceedingly black within.

33 The fourth is more thin than any cobweb, and thence so called, immediately compassing the crystalline humour.

34 The fifth, reticularis; is a netty tunicle, of the brain: this framed of the substance diffuseth the visal spirits, and perceives the alteration of the crystalline; and here is the mean of sight.

35 The sixth is called the glassy tunicle, clasping in the glassy humour.

35 The eye hath two nerves, the optie or seeing nerve, and moving. The optic separate in their . root, in the midst of their progress meet, and strengthen one the other.

37 The moving, rising from the same stem, are at length severed, therefore as one move, so moves the other.

58 Hearing is the second sense, less noble than the eye, more needful.

29 The outward ear is of a gristly matter, covered with the common tunicle; it is framed with many crooks, lest the air should enter too forcibly.

40 The inward ear consists of four passages; the first is steepy, lest any thing should creep in.

41 If the drum be wet with falling of rheum we are hard of hearing; but if it grows thick, we are irrecoverably deaf.

"This drum" divides the first and second part, In which three hearing instruments reside; Three instruments compact by wondrous art, With slender string knit to th' drum's innerside; Their native-temper being hard and dry, Fitting the sound with their firm quality, Continue still the same in age and infancy.

"The first an hammer43 call'd, whose out-grown sides

Lie on the drum; but with his swelling end, Fix'd in the hollow stithe, there fast abides: The stithe's short foot, doth on the drum depend, His longer in the stirrup surely plac'd:

The stirrup's sharp side by the stithe embrac'd;

But his broad base ty'd to a little window fast.

ii Two little windows 4 ever open lie,

The sound unto the cave's third part conveying; And slender pipe, whose narrow cavity

Doth purge the inborn air, that idle staying, Would else corrupt, and still supplies the spending: [ing, The cave's third part in twenty by-ways bendIs call'd the labyrinth, in hundred crooks ascending.

"Such whilome was that eye-deceiving frame,
Which crafty Dædal with a cunning hand
Built to empound the Cretan prince's shame :
Such was that Woodstock cave, where Rosa-
Fair Rosamond, fled jealous Ellenore, [mond,
Whom late a shepherd taught to weep so sore,
That woods and hardest rocks her harder fate de-
plore.

"The third part with his narrow rocky straits Perfects the sound, and gives more sharp accenting;

Then sends it to the fourth ; where ready waits A nimble post, who ne'er his haste relenting, Wings to the judgment seat with speedy flight; [night, There the equal judge attending day and Receives the ent'ring sounds, and dooms each voice aright.

""Twixt Visus' double court a tower stands,
Plac'd in the suburbs' centre; whose high top,
And lofty raised ridge the rest commands:
Low at his foot a double door stands ope,

Admitting passage to the air's ascending;
And divers odours to the city sending, [ing.
Revives the heavy town, his lib'ral sweets dispend-

"This vaulted tower's half built of massy stone,
The other half of stuff less hard and dry,
Fit for distending, or compression,
The outward wall may seem all porphery.
Olfactus dwells within his lofty fort;
But in the city is his chief resort, [court.
Where 'twixt two little hills he keeps his judging

"By these two great caves are plac'd these little hills 47,

Most like the nipples of a virgin's breast; By which the air that th' hollow tower fills, Into the city passeth: with the rest

The odours pressing in, are here all stay'd;
Till by the sense impartially weigh'd,
Unto the common judge they are with speed con-
vey'd.

"At each side of that tow'r, stand two fair plains,
More fair than that which in rich Thessaly
Was once frequented by the Muse's trains:
Here ever sits sweet blushing modesty;

Here in two colours beauty shining bright, Dressing her white with red, her red with white, [wand'ring sight. With pleasing chain enthrals, and binds loose

"Below a cave, roof'd with an heav'n-like plaster,

And under strew'd with purple tapestry, Where Gustus 48 dwells, the isle's and prince's Koilia's steward, one of the pentarchy; [taster, Whom Tactus 49 (so some say) got of his mother:

For by their nearest likeness one to th' other, Tactus may eas'ly seem his father, and his brother.

46 The sense of smelling.

47 These are two little bunches like paps or teats spoken of in the xvth stanza of this canto.

48 Gustus, or the taste, is in the palate, which in the Greek is called the heaven.

49 Taste is a kind of touch, nor can it exist but by touching.

"Tactus the last, but yet the eldest brother; (Whose office meanest, yet of all the race The first and last, more needful than the other) Hath his abode in none, yet every place:

Through all the isle distended is his dwelling, He rules the streams that from the Cephal swelling, [dealing. Run all along the isle, both sense and motion

"With Gustus, Lingua dwells, his prattling wife, Endow'd with strange and adverse qualities: The nurse of hate and love, of peace and strife; Mother of fairest truth, and foulest lies; Or best, or worst; no mean; made all of fire, Which sometimes Hell, and sometimes Heav'ns inspire, [d'ring liar. Ey whom oft truth self speaks, oft that first mur

"The idle Sun stood still at her command,

Breathing his fiery steeds in Gibeon :
And pale-fac'd Cynthia at her word made stand,
Resting her couch in vales of Ajalon.

Her voice oft open breaks the stubborn skies,
And holds th' Almighty's hands with suppli-
ant cries:

Her voice tears open Hell with horrid blasphemies.

"Therefore,that great Creator, well foresceing
To what a mouster she would soon be changing,
(Though lovely once, perfect and glorious being)
Curb'd with her iron bit, and held from
ranging,
[chaining,
And with strong bonds her looser steps en-
Bridled her course, too many words refraining.
And doubled all his guards, bold liberty restraining.

"For close within he sets twice sixteen guarders 52,
Whose harden'd temper could not soon be mov'd:
Without the gate he plac'd two other warders
To shut and ope the door, as it behov'd:

But such strange force hath her enchanting
art,

That she hath made her keepers of her part, And they to all her flights all furtherance impart.

"Thus (with their help) by her the sacred Muses. Refresh the prince, dull'd with much business; By her the prince, unto his prince oft uses,

In heav'nly throne, from Hell to find access. She Heav'n to Earth in music often brings, And Earth to Heav'n :-but, oh! how sweet she sings, [strings. When, in rich Grace's key, she tunes poor Nature's [hear, Whom some deaf snake, that cou'd no music Or some blind newt, that could no beauty see, Thinking to kiss, kill'd with his forked spear:

"Thus Orpheus won his lost Euridice;

He, when his 'plaints on Earth were vainly Down to Avernus' river boldly went, [spent, And charm'd the meagre ghosts with mournful

blandishment.

SC Tactus, or the sense of touching.

The tongue is held with a ligament, ordinarily called the bridle.

2 The tongue is guarded with thirty-two teeth, and with the lips; all which do not a little help the speech, and sweeten the voice.

"There what his mother, fair Calliope, From Phoebus' harp and Muses' spring had brought him;

[him, What sharpest grief for his Euridice, And love, redoubling grief, had newly taught He lavish'd out, and with his potent spell Beut all the rig'rous pow'rs of stubborn Hell: He first brought pity down with rigid ghosts to dwell.

"Th' amazed shades came flocking round about, Nor car'd they now to pass the Stygian ford; All Hell came running there (an hideous rout) And dropp'd a silent tear for ev'ry word:

The aged ferry man shov'd out his boat; But that without his help did thither float. And having ta'en him in, came dancing on the moat.

"The hungry Tantal might have fill'd him now, And with large draughts swill'd in the standing pool:

The fruit hung list'ning on the wond'ring bough,
Forgetting Hell's command; but he (ah, fool!)
Forgot his starved taste, his ears to fill:
Ixion's turning wheel unmov'd stood still:
But he was rapt as much with pow'rful music's

skill.

"Tir'd Sisyphus sat on his resting store,

And hop'd at length his labour done for ever; The vulture feeding on his pleasing moan, Glutted with music, scorn'd grown Tityus' liver. The Furies flung their snaky whips away, And melt in tears at his enchanting lay; No shrieks now were heard; all Hell kept holiday. "That treble dog, whose voice ne'er quiet fears

All that in eudless night's sad kingdom dwell, Stood pricking up his thrice two list'ning ears, With greedy joy drinking the sacred spell;

And softly whining pity'd much his wrongs; And now first silent at those dainty songs, Oft wisn'd himself more cars, and fewer mouths and tongues.

"At length return'd with his Euridice;

But with this law, not to return his eyes, Till he was past the laws of Tartary: (Alas! who gives love laws in miseries?

Love is love's law; love but to love is ty'd) Now when the dawns of neighbour day he spy'd, [died. Ah, wretch!-Euridice he saw,--and lost,-and "All so who strives from grave of hellish night, To bring his dead soul to the joyful sky; If when he comes in view of heav'nly light, He turns again to Hell his yielding eye,

And longs to see what he had left; his sore Grows desp'rate, deeper, deadlier than afore, His helps and hopes much less, his crime and judg

ment more.

"But why do I enlarge my tedious song,

And tire my flagging Muse with weary flight? Ah! much I fear, I hold you much too long. The outward parts be plain to every sight: But to describe the people of this isle, And that great prince, these reeds are all too vile. [style. Some higher verse may fit, and some more lofty

* See, Phlegon, drenched in the hizzing main, Allays his thirst, and cools the flaming car; Vesper fair Cynthia ushers, and her train: See, th' apish Earth hath lighted many a star, Sparkling in dewy globes-all home invite : Home, then, my flocks, home, shepherds, home, 'tis night: [light." My song with day is done; my Muse is set with

By this the gentle boys had framed well

A myrtle garland mix'd with conq'ring bay, From whose fit march issu'd a pleasing smell, And all enamell'd it with roses gay;

With which, they crown'd their honour'd

Thirsil's head;

Ah, blessed shepherd swain! ah, happy meed!

Those claim'd their birth from that eternal Held th' isle, and rul'd it in their father's right;

While all his fellows chant on slender pipes of reed. And in their faces bore their parent's image bright.

CANTO VI.

THE Hours had now unlock'd the gate of day,
When fair Aurora leaves her frosty bed,
Hasting with youthful Cephalus to play,

Unmask'd her face, and rosy beauties spread;
Tithonus' silver age was much despis'd.
Ah! who in love that cruel law devis'd,
That old love's little worth, and new too highly
priz'd.

The gentle shepherds on an hillock plac'd,

(Whose shady head a beechy garland crown'd) View'd all their flocks that on the pastures graz'd: Then down they sit, while Thenot 'gan the round;

Thenot! was never fairer boy among The gentle lads, that in the Muses' throng By Camus' yellow streams, learn tune their pipe

and song.

"See, Thirsil, see the shepherd's expectations;
Why then, ah! why sitt'st thou so silent there?
We long to know that island's happy nation;
Oh, do not leave thy isle unpeopled here.

Tell us who brought, and whence these co-
lonies;

Who is their king, what foes, and what allies; What laws maintain their peace; what wars, and victories?"

"Thenot, my dear! that simple fisher-swain,

Whose little boat in some small river strays; Yet foudly lanches in the swelling main,

Soon, yet too late, repents his foolish plays:

How dare I then forsake my well-set bounds, Whose new-cut pipe as yet but harshly sounds; A narrow compass best my ungrown Muse empounds.

"Two shepherds most I love, with just adoring, That Mantuan swain, who chang'd his slender reed,

To trumpet's martial voice, and war's loud roaring, From Corydon to Turnus' daring deed;

And next our home-bred Coliu sweetest firing! Their steps not following close, but far admiring:

To lackey one of these, is all my pride's aspiring.

"For when the isle that main would fond forsake,
In which at first it found a happy place,
And deep was plung'd in that dead hellish lake;
Back to their father flew this heav'nly race,

And left the isle forlorn and desolate;
That now with fear, and wishes all too late,
Sought in that blackest wave to hide his blacker
fate.

"How shall a worm, on dust that crawls and feeds, Climb to th' empyreal court, where these states reign,

And there take view of what Heav'n's self exceeds? The sun-less stars, these lights the Sun distain: Their beams divine, and beauties do excel What here on Earth, in air, or Heav'n do

dwell:

Such never eye yet saw, such never tongue can tell.
"Soon as these saints the treach'rous isle forsook,
Rush'd in a false, foul, fiend-like company,
And every fort, and every castle took,

All to this rabble yield the sov'reignty:

The goodly temples which those heroes plac'd, By this foul rout were utterly defac'd, And all their fences strong, and all their bulwarks raz'd.

"So where the neatest badger most abides,

Deep in the earth she frames her pretty cell, And into halls and closulets divides

But when the stinking fox with loathsome smell Infects her pleasant cave, the cleanly beast So hates her inmate and rank smelling guest, That far away she flies, and leaves her loathed

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The Works of the English Poets, from Chaucer to Cowper: Including ..., Volumen6