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And then in haste her bower, she leaves,

With Thestylis to bind the sheaves;
Or, if the earlier season lead,
To the tanned haycock in the mead.
Sometimes, with secure delight,
The upland hamlets will invite,
When the merry bells ring round,
And the jocund rebecks sound
To many a youth, and many a maid
Dancing in the chequered shade;
And young and old come forth
play

On a sunshine holiday,
Till the livelong daylight fail;
Then to the spicy nut-brown ale,
With stories told of many a feat,
How Fairy Mab the junkets eat;
She was pinched and pulled,
said.

to

she

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Where throngs of knights and barons bold

In weeds of peace high triumphs hold,

With store of ladies, whose bright eyes

Rain influence, and judge the prize
Of wit, or arms, while both contend
To win her grace, whom all com-
mend.

There let Hymen oft appear
In saffron robe, with taper clear,
And pomp, and feast, and revelry,
With masque and antique pageantry,'
Such sights as youthful poets dream,
On summer eves, by haunted stream.
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
Lap me in soft Lydian airs,
Married to immortal verse,

Such as the melting soul may pierce,
In notes with many a winding bout
Of linked sweetness long drawn out,
With wanton heed, and giddy cun-

ning,

The melting voice through mazes running,

Untwisting all the chains that tie
The hidden soul of harmony;
That Orpheus' self may leave his
head

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.

IL PENSEROSO.

HENCE, vain deluding joys, The brood of folly, without father bred!

How little you bestead,

Or fill the fixed mind with all your toys!

Dwell in some idle brain,

MILTON.

And fancies fond with gaudy shapes And add to these retired Leisure, That in trim gardens takes his pleasure;

possess,

As thick and numberless

As the gay motes that people the But first and chiefest with thee bring,

sunbeams,

Or likest hovering dreams,
The fickle pensioners of Morpheus'
train.

But hail, thou goddess, sage and
holy!

Hail, divinest Melancholy!
Whose saintly visage is too bright
To hit the sense of human sight,
And therefore to our weaker view
O'erlaid with black, staid Wisdom's
hue:

Black, but such as in esteem
Prince Memnon's sister might be-

seem,

Or that starred Ethiop queen, that

strove

To set her beauty's praise above
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,
While 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,
And looks commercing with the
skies,

Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes:
There, held in holy passion still,
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,

Spare Fast, that oft with Gods doth
diet,

And hears the Muses in a ring
Aye round about Jove's altar sing;

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,
In her sweetest, saddest plight,
Smoothing the rugged brow of Night,
While Cynthia checks her dragon
yoke,

Gently o'er the accustomed oak;
Sweet bird, that shunn'st the noise of
folly,

Most musical, most melancholy!
Thee, chantress, oft the woods
among,

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 heavens' 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,
Or if the air will not permit,
Swinging slow with sullen roar.
Some still, removed place will fit,
Where glowing embers through the

room

Teach light to counterfeit a gloom;
Far from all resort of mirth,
Save the cricket on the hearth,
Or the bellman's drowsy charm,
To bless the doors from nightly harm.
Or let my lamp at midnight hour
Be seen on some high lonely tower,
Where I may oft outwatch the Bear,
With thrice-great Hermes, or un-
sphere

The spirit of Plato, to unfold
[sook
hold
What worlds, or what vast regions
The immortal mind, that hath for-
Her mansion in this fleshly nook;
And of those demons that are found
In fire, air, flood, or under ground,

Whose power hath a true consent
With planet, or with element.

Sometime let gorgeous Tragedy
In sceptred 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,
And made hell grant what love did
seek;

Or call up him that left half told
The story of Cambuscan bold,
Of Camball, and of Algarsife,
And who had Canace to wife,

There in close covert by some brook,
Where no profaner eye may look,
Hide me from day's garish eye,
While the bee with honeyed thigh,
That at her flowery work doth sing,
And the waters murmuring,
With such consort as they keep,
Entice the dewy-feathered sleep:
And let some strange mysterious
dream

Wave at his wings in airy stream
Of lively portraiture displayed,
Softly on my eyelids laid:
And as I wake, sweet music breathe
Above, about, or underneath,
Sent by some spirit to mortals good,
Or the unseen genius of the wood.
But let my due feet never fail
To walk the studious cloister's pale,

That owned the virtuous ring and And love the high embowèd roof,

glass;

And of the wondrous horse of brass,
On which the Tartar king did ride;
And if aught else great bards beside
In sage and solemn tunes have sung,
Of tourneys and of trophies hung;
Of forests and enchantments drear,
Where more is meant than meets the

ear.

With antic pillars massy proof,
And storied windows richly dight,
Casting a dim religious light.
There let the pealing organ blow,
To the full-voiced choir below,
In service high, and anthems clear,
As may with sweetness, through
mine ear,

Dissolve me into ecstasies,

Thus, Night, oft see me in thy pale And bring all heaven before mine

career,

'Till civil-suited Morn appear,

eyes.

And may at last my weary age

Not tricked and frounced as she was Find out the peaceful hermitage,

wont

With the Attic boy to hunt,
But kerchiefed 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,
Where the rude axe with heavèd
stroke

Was never heard, the Nymphs to
daunt,

The hairy gown and mossy cell,
Where I may sit and rightly spell
Of every star that heaven doth shew,
And every herb that sips the dew;
Till old experience do attain
To something like prophetic strain.

These pleasures, Melancholy, give,
And I with thee will choose to live.

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Or fright them from their hallowed haunt.

The

yellow cowslip, and the pale primrose.

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All meanly wrapt in the rude man- Who now hath quite forgot to rave,

ger lies;

Nature in awe to Him

Had doffed her gaudy trim,

With her great Master so to sympa

thize:

It was no season then for her

To wanton with the sun, her lusty paramour.

Only with speeches fair
She woos the gentle air

To hide her guilty front with inno

cent snow,

And on her naked shame, Pollute with sinful blame,

While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmed wave.

ON HIS BLINDNESS.

WHEN I consider how my light is spent

Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,

And that one talent which is death to hide,

Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent

The saintly veil of maiden white to To serve therewith my Maker, and

throw,

Confounded that her Maker's eyes Should look so near upon her foul deformities.

But He, her fears to cease,
Sent down the meek-eyed Peace;

She, crowned with olives green,
came softly sliding
Down through the turning sphere
His ready harbinger,

With turtle wing the amorous clouds dividing,

And, waving wide her myrtle wand, She strikes a universal peace through sea and land.

No war, or battle's sound, Was heard the world around:

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