But he, her fears to cease,

Sent down the meek-eyed Peace:

She, crowned with olive green, came softly sliding

Down through the turning sphere,"

His ready harbinger?

With turtles wing the amorous clouds divid- Was all that did their silly17 thoughts so busy

ing;

And waving wide her myrtle wand,

keep.

Their hearts and ears did greet

She strikes a universal peace through sea and

land.

No war, or battle's sound,

Was heard the world around;

As never was by mortal finger strook,18 Divinely-warbled voice

Answering the stringèd noise,

The idle spear and shield were high uphung; The air, such pleasure loath to lose,

As all their souls in blissful rapture took:

The hooked9 chariot stood

Unstained with hostile blood;

The trumpet spake not to the armèd throng; And kings sat still with awful10 eye,

As if they surely knew their sovran Lord was by.

But peaceful was the night

Wherein the Prince of Light

His reign of peace upon the earth began:
The winds, with wonder whist,11
Smoothly the waters kissed,

Whispering new joys to the mild ocean,
Who now hath quite forgot to rave,

60

While birds of calm sit brooding on the

With thousand echoes still prolongs each heav

The helmèd cherubim

And sworded seraphim

The Babe yet lies in smiling infancy
That on the bitter cross

Are seen in glittering ranks with wings dis- Must redeem our loss,

played,

Harping in loud and solemn quíre,

With unexpressive20 notes, to Heaven's newborn heir.

Such music (as 'tis said)

Before was never made,

But when of old the sons of morning sung,21

While the Creator great

His constellations set,

120

So both himself and us to glorify:
Yet first, to those ychained in sleep,

The wakeful trump of doom must thunder
through the deep,23

With such a horrid clang

As on Mount Sinai rang,24

While the red fire and smouldering clouds outbrake: The aged earth, aghast

And the well-balanced world on hinges hung, With terror of that blast,25

And cast the dark foundations deep,

160

Shall from the surface to the centre shake,

And bid the weltering waves their oozy chan- When, at the world's last session,

nel keep.

Ring out, ye crystal spheres!

Once bless our human ears

The dreadful Judge in middle air shall spread his throne.

(If ye have power to touch our senses so), And then at last our bliss Full and perfect is,26

And let your silver chime

Move in melodious time;

And let the bass of heaven's deep organ

blow;

And with your ninefold22 harmony

131

But now begins; for from this happy day The old Dragon under ground,

In straiter limits bound,

Not half so far casts his usurped sway; 170

Make up full consort to the angelic symphony. And wroth to see his kingdom fail,

For if such holy song

Enwrap our fancy long,

Swinges27 the scaly horror of his folded tail.

The oracles are dumb;28

Time will run back and fetch the age of No voice or hideous hum

gold;

And speckled Vanity

Will sicken soon and die,

Runs through the archèd roof in words deceiving.

Apollo from his shrine

And leprous Sin will melt from earthly Can no more divine,

Orbed in a rainbow; and, like glories | And the resounding shore,

180

A voice of weeping heard and loud lament; From haunted spring, and dale

Edged with poplar pale,

The parting Genius29 is with sighing sent; With flower-inwoven tresses torn,

The Nymphs in twilight shade of tangled
thickets mourn.

In consecrated earth,
And on the holy hearth,

23? the air

24 When God gave Moses
the ten command-
ments.

25 Cp. 1. 156.

in

26 will be

27 lashes

190

28 Christ's coming is conceived as putting to naught the heathen divinities. 29 singular of geniispirits

The Lars and Lemures30 moan with midnight

plaint;

In urns and altars round,

A drear and dying sound

The rays of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyn; Nor all the gods beside

Longer dare abide,

Not Typhon+2 huge ending in snaky twine:

Affrights the flamens31 at their service Our Babe, to show his Godhead true,

quaint;

And the chill marble seems to sweat,

While each peculiar power forgoes his wonted

seat.

Peor32 and Baälim32

Forsake their temples dim,

Can in his swaddling bands control the damnèd

crew.

So when the sun in bed,

Curtained with cloudy red,

Pillows his chin upon an orient wave,
The flocking shadows pale

With that twice-battered god of Palestine;38 Troop to the infernal jail,
And moonèd Ashtaroth,34

Heaven's queen and mother both,

Now sits not girt with tapers' holy shine; The Libyc Hammon35 shrinks his horn;

200

In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz36 mourn.

And sullen Moloch,37 fled,

Hath left in shadows dread

His burning idol all of blackest hue;

In vain with cymbals' ring

They call the grisly king,

In dismal dance about the furnace blue; 210

The brutish gods of Nile as fast,

Isis38 and Orus39 and the dog Anubis, 10 haste. Bright-harnessed angels sit in order serviceable.

He feels from Juda's land
The dreaded Infant's hand;

221

Thy easy numbers flow, and that each heart Hath from the leaves of thy unvalued45 book the Those Delphic46 lines with deep impression took; who is below con- Then thou, our fancy of itself bereaving, fused with the bull- Dost make us marble with too much conceivgod Apis. ing;47

god of the Nile,

39 Their son.

40 An Egyptian divin- And so sepulchred in such pomp dost lie,

ity in the form of
a dog.

41 He was captured by
being lured to en-
ter a chest.

36 Adonis, a god of the Syrians, who having been

That kings for such a tomb would wish to die.

42 A mythological snake-
like monster.

slain by a wild boar, was said to die every 43 born (the Star of year and revive again.

Bethlehem)

37 Chief god of the Phoenicians; his image was of 44 The form has no war-
brass and filled with fire and into his arms
children were thrown to be sacrificed.

rant, but the mean-
ing is clear.

45 invaluable
46 oracular, wise
47 The thought is not
very clear, but cp.
lines 7, 8, and I
Penscroso, 42.

L'ALLEGRO1

HENCE, loathed Melancholy,

Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born In Stygian cave forlorn,

'Mongst horrid shapes and shrieks and sights

unholy!

Find out some uncouths cell,

Then to come11 in spite of sorrow,
And at my window bid good-morrow,
Through the sweet-briar or the vine,
Or the twisted eglantine;12
While the cock, with lively dia,

Scatters the rear of darkness thin;
And to the stack, or the barn-door,

Where brooding darkness spreads his jealous Stoutly struts his dames before: 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 Graces5 more,

To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore;

Or whether (as some sagers sing)

The frolic wind that breathes the spring,

Zephyr, with Aurora playing,

As he met her once a-Maying,

There on beds of violets blue

And fresh-blown roses washed in dew,
Filled her with thee, a daughter fair,
So buxom, blithe, and debonair.
Haste thee, nymph, and bring with thee
Jest, and youthful Jollity,

Quips and cranks8 and wanton wiles,
Nods and becks and wreathed smiles,
Such as hang on Hebe's10 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;

Oft listening how the hounds and horn
Cheerly rouse the slumbering morn,
From the side of some hoar hill,
Through the high wood echoing shrill:
Sometime walking, not unseen,

10 By hedge-row 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;13
While the ploughman, near at hand,
Whistles o'er the furrowed land,

20

And the milkmaid singeth blithe,

And the mower whets his scythe,

And every shepherd tells his tale14
Under the hawthorn in the dale.

Straight mine eye hath caught new pleas

ures,

Whilst the landskip round it measures:
Russet lawns and fallows15 grey,
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;
30 Towers and battlements it sees
Bosomed high in tufted trees,
Where perhaps some beauty lies,
The cynosure16 of neighbouring eyes.
Hard by, a cottage chimney smokes
From betwixt two aged oaks,
Where Corydon and Thyrsis17 met
Are at their savoury dinner set

Of herbs and other country messes,
Which the neat-handed Phillis17 dresses;

40 And then in haste her bower she leaves,
With Thestylis17 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 rebecks18 sound
To many a youth and many a maid

goddesses of festive 6 more sagely (The mythology that follows is Milton's own invention).

7 lithe, lively

8 odd turns of speech
9 beckonings

10 Daughter of Jupiter
and Juno; goddess
of youth.

11 i. e., arise and go (to
the window)

12 honeysuckle
13 decked

14 counts his sheep
15 untilled land

50

60

70

80

90

16 center of observation 17 Common names of rustics in pastoral poetry.

18 Instruments like vio

lins.

23 processions, shows, revels

24 The god of marriage. 25 A form of entertainment.

26 low-heeled shoe, symbol of comedy

27 One of the three moods of Grecian music.

care