Comus continued.]

So dear to heaven is saintly chastity,

That, when a soul is found sincerely so,
A thousand liveried angels lacky her,
Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt.

How charming is divine philosophy!

Line 453.

Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose; But musical as is Apollo's lute,1

And a perpetual feast of nectar'd sweets,

Where no crude surfeit reigns.

Line 476.

Fill'd the air with barbarous dissonance.

Line 550.

I was all ear,

And took in strains that might create a soul

Under the ribs of death.

Line 560.

If this fail,

Line 597.

The pillar'd firmament is rottenness,
And earth's base built on stubble.

The leaf was darkish, and had prickles on it,
But in another country, as he said,

Bore a bright golden flower, but not in this soil:
Unknown, and like esteem'd, and the dull swain
Treads on it daily with his clouted shoon.

Line 631.

Enter'd the very lime-twigs of his spells,

And yet came off.

1 As sweet and musical

Line 646.

As bright Apollo's lute.

Love's Labour's Lost. Act iv. Sc. 3.

[Comus continued.

And live like Nature's bastards, not her sons.

Line 727.

It is for homely features to keep home,
They had their name thence.

Line 748.

What need a vermeil-tinctur'd lip for that,
Love-darting eyes, or tresses like the morn?

Swinish gluttony

Line 752.

Ne'er looks to heaven amidst his gorgeous feast, But with besotted base ingratitude

Crams, and blasphemes his feeder.

Line 777

Enjoy your dear wit, and gay rhetoric,

That hath so well been taught her dazzling fence.

Line 790.

His rod revers'd,

Line 816.

And backward mutters of dissevering power.

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.

LYCIDAS.

I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude, And with forc'd fingers rude,

Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year.

He knew

Line 3.

Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme.

To sport with Amaryllis in the shade,
Or with the tangles of Neæra's hair.

Line 68.

Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise1 (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 Fury with the abhorred shears,
And slits the thin-spun life.

Line 70.

1 Erant quibus appetentior famæ videretur, quando etiam sapientibus cupido gloriæ novissima exuitur. Tacitus, Histor. iv. 6.

[Lycidas continued.

Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil.

It was that fatal and perfidious bark,

Line 78.

Built in the eclipse and rigg'd with curses dark.

Line 100.

The pilot of the Galilean lake.

Line 109.

Throw hither all your quaint enamell'd eyes,
That on the green turf suck the honied showers,
And purple all the ground with vernal flowers.
Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies,
The tufted crow-toe, and pale jessamine,

The white pink, and the pansy freak'd with jet,
The glowing violet,

The musk-rose, and the well-attir'd wood-bine, With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head, And every flower that sad embroidery wears.

Line 139.

So sinks the day-star in the ocean-bed,
And yet anon repairs his drooping head,
And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore
Flames in the forehead of the morning sky.

Line 168.

To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new.

Line 193.

ARCADES.

Under the shady roof

Of branching elm star-proof.

Line 88.

L' ALLEGRO.

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

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

Sport, that wrinkled Care derides,
And Laughter holding both his sides.
Come, and trip it as you go,

Line 25.