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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 stole10 of cypress lawn11
Over thy decent12 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;
And add to these retired Leisure,
That in trim gardens takes his pleasure;
But first, and chiefest, with thee bring
Him that yon soars on golden wing,
Guiding the fiery-wheeled throne,
The cherub Contemplation; 13
And the mute Silence hist1 along,
'Less Philomel will deign a song,

In her sweetest, saddest plight,

30 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 charm18

To bless the doors from nightly harm.

Or let my lamp at midnight hour Be seen in some high lonely tower, Where I may oft out-watch the Bear,19 With thrice-great Hermes; 20 or unsphere 40 The spirit of Plato, to unfold

What worlds or what vast regions hold
The immortal mind that hath forsook
Her mansion in this fleshy nook;
And21 of those demons that are found
In fire, air, flood, or underground,
Whose power hath a true consent22
With planet or with element.
Sometime let gorgeous Tragedy
In sceptred pall23 come sweeping by,
50 Presenting Thebes, 24 or Pelops '25 line,
Or the tale of Troy divine,26

Or what (though rare) of later age
Ennobled hath the buskined stage.27
But, O sad Virgin! that thy power
Might raise Musæus28 from his bower;
Or bid the soul of Orpheus29 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

Smoothing the rugged brow of Night,

While Cynthia checks her dragon yoke15

Gently o'er the accustomed16 oak:

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

The story of Cambuscan bold,30

Most musical, most melancholy!

Of Camball, and of Algarsife,

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 curfew17 sound,
Over some wide-watered shore,
Swinging slow with sullen roar;
Or if the air will not permit,
Some still removed place will fit,

10 robe

11 A thin texture.

12 seemly, modest

And who had Canace to wife,

That owned the virtuous31 ring and 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 turneys, and of trophies hung,
70 Of forests, and enchantments drear,
Where more is meant than meets the ear.32
Thus, Night, oft see me in thy pale career,
Till civil-suited Morn appear,

13 The name is Milton's, but cp. Ezekiel x. 14 lead hushed

15 Cynthia (Diana, goddess of the moon) was not drawn by dragons; Ceres, goddess of harvests, was.

16 frequented (by Philomel, the nightingale) 17 A bell rung in olden times at eight o'clock as

a signal that fires were to be covered and lights put out.

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Not tricked and frounced33 as she was wont

With the Attic boy34 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 Sylvan35 loves,
Of pine, or monumental oak,
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,
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 his36 wings in airy stream
Of lively portraiture displayed,
Softly on my eyelids laid37;

And as I wake,38 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,39
And love the high embowèd40 roof,
With antique pillars massy proof,41
And storied 42 windows richly dight,
Casting a dim religious light.
There let the pealing organ blow,
To the full-voiced quire below,
In service high and anthems clear,

As may with sweetness, through mine ear,
Dissolve me into ecstasies,

And bring all Heaven before mine eyes.
And may at last my weary age
Find out the peaceful hermitage,
The hairy gown, and mossy cell,
Where I may sit and rightly spell43
Of every star that heaven doth shew,
And every herb that sips the dew,
Till old experience do attain

To something like prophetic strain.

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150

160

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42 painted to represent stories

43 construe, study

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

LYCIDAS.*

YET once more,1 O ye laurels,2 and once more, Ye myrtles2 brown, with ivy2 never sere,

I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude, And with forced fingers rude

10

Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year.
Bitter constraint and sad occasion dear
Compels me to disturb your season due;
For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime,
Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer.
Who would not sing for Lycidas? he knew
Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme.
He must not float upon his watery bier
Unwept, and welters to the parching wind,
Without the meed of some melodious tear.
Begin then, Sisters of the sacred well
That from beneath the seat of Jove doth
spring;

Begin, and somewhat loudly sweep the string.
Hence with denial vain and coy excuse:

So may some gentle Muse

With lucky words favour my destined urn, 20 And as he passes turn,

And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud.

For we were nursed upon the self-same hill,5 Fed the same flock, by fountain, shade, and rill;

Together both, ere the high lawns appeared
Under the opening eyelids of the morn,
We drove a-field, and both together heard
What time the gray-fly? winds her sultry horn,
Battenings our flocks with the fresh dews of

night,

Oft till the star that rose at evening, bright, 30 Toward heaven's descent had sloped his westering wheel.

Meanwhile the rural ditties were not mute,
Tempered to the oaten flute;

1 Milton apparently had written nothing for three years.

2 Symbols of the poet's rewards.

3 toss, roll

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7 The trumpet fly that makes a sharp hissing sound at noon. 8 fattening

4 The Pierian spring at the foot of Mt. Olympus, Jove's *This elegy was written in memory of Edward King, a fellow student of Milton's at Cambridge, who was drowned off the Welsh coast, August, 1637. The sad event and the poet's sorrow are poetically set forth in the pastoral guise of one shepherd mourning for another. The fact, moreover, that King was destined for the Church enabled Milton to introduce St. Peter and voice, through him, a Puritanic denunciation of the corruption among the clergy. See Eng. Lit., p. 149.

Rough Satyrs danced, and Fauns with cloven (That last infirmity of noble mind)

heel

From the glad sound would not be absent long; And old Damætas loved to hear our song.

To scorn delights and live laborious days;
But the fair guerdon17 when we hope to find,
And think to burst out into sudden blaze,
Comes the blind Fury18 with the abhorrèd
shears,

But the heavy change, now thou art gone, Now thou art gone, and never must return! Thee, Shepherd, thee the woods and desert And slits the thin-spun life. 'But not the caves,

praise,'

With wild thyme and the gadding vine Phoebus19 replied, and touched my trembling

o'ergrown,

And all their echoes, mourn.

The willows and the hazel copses green
Shall now no more be seen,

Fanning their joyous leaves to thy soft lays.
As killing as the canker to the rose,

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Set off to the world, nor in broad rumour lies;
But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes
And perfect witness of all-judging Jove;

Or taint-worm to the weanling10 herds that As he pronounces lastly on each deed,

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Of so much fame in heaven expect thy meed.' O fountain Arethuse, 20 and thou honoured flood,

Smooth-sliding Mincius,21 crowned with vocal reeds,

That strain I heard was of a higher mood:
But now my oat proceeds,

And listens to the herald22 of the sea,
That came in Neptune's plea.23

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Closed o'er the head of your loved Lycidas?
For neither were ye playing on the steep
Where your old bards, the famous Druids, lie, He asked the waves, and asked the felon winds,
Nor on the shaggy top of Mona11 high,

Nor yet where Deva12 spreads her wizard stream.

Ay me, I fondly dream!

What hard mishap hath doomed this gentle
swain?

And questioned every gust of rugged wings
That blows from off each beakèd promontory:

Had ye been there for what could that have They knew not of his story;
done?

And sage Hippotades24 their answer brings,

What could the Muse13 herself that Orpheus That not a blast was from his dungeon

bore,

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The Muse herself, for her enchanting son,
Whom universal nature did lament,
When by the rout that made the hideous roar,
His gory visage down the stream was sent,
Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore?14
Alas! what boots it with uncessant care

To tend the homely, slighted, shepherd's trade,15

And strictly meditate the thankless Muse?
Were it not better done, as others use,
To sport with Amaryllis in the shade,
Or with the tangles of Neæra's hair?16
Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth
raise

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14 Orpheus having angered the Thracian Bacchantes,

15

was

torn into pieces by them. poetry

16 i. e.. live for pleasure (the names imaginary)

are

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Inwrought with figures dim, and on the edge Like to that sanguine flower28 inscribed with

woe.

On whose fresh lap the swart star42 sparely 43 looks,

Throw hither all your quaint enamelled eyes,

'Ah! who hath reft,' quoth he, 'my dearest That on the green turf suck the honeyed show

pledge? '20

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And purple all the ground with vernal flowers.
Bring the rathe44 primrose that forsaken dies,
The tufted crow-toe,45 and pale jessamine,
The white pink, and the pansy freaked with
jet,
The glowing violet,

'How well could I have spared for thee, young The musk-rose, and the well-attired woodbine,

swain,

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Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread;
Besides what the grim wolf37 with privy paw
Daily devours apace, and nothing said.
But that two-handed engine38 at the door
Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more.
Return, Alpheus; 39 the dread voice is past
That shrunk thy streams; return, Sicilian
Muse, 40

And call the vales, and bid them hither cast
Their bells and flowrets of a thousand hues.
Ye valleys low, where the mild whispers use11
Of shades and wanton winds and gushing
brooks,

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With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head,
And every flower that sad embroidery wears;
Bid amaranthus 46 all his beauty shed,
And daffodillies fill their cups with tears,
To strew the laureate hearse47 where Lycid lies.
For so to interpose a little ease,

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Let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise, Ay me! whilst thee the shores and sounding

seas

Wash far away, where 'er thy bones are hurled;
Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides,48
Where thou perhaps under the whelming tide
Visit 'st the bottom of the monstrous world; 49
Or whether thou, to our moist vows denied,
Sleep 'st by the fable of Bellerus old,
Where the great vision of the guarded mount50
Looks toward Namancos51 and Bayona 's52 hold.
Look homeward, Angel, now, and melt with

ruth;

160

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42 dog-star 43 sparingly 44 early

45 purple hyacinth 46 An imaginary flower that never fades.

47 garlanded bier 48 Islands north of Scotland.

49 world of monsters (the sea)

51 In Spain.

52 Near Namancos; both found on ancient maps. 53 Dolphins rescued Arion the Greek poet when jealous sailors, coveting his treasures, threw him overboard.

54 arranges

50 fable of Bellerus = fabled Bellerus. He is sometimes said to have been a Cornish giant. At the western end of Cornwall is a rock called the Giant's Chair; and near Land's End is a rock called St. Michael's Mount, said to be guarded by the archangel himself,

CROMWELL, our chief of men, who through a

cloud

Not of war only, but detractions rude,
Guided by faith and matchless fortitude,
To peace and truth thy glorious way hast
ploughed,

Where, other groves and other streams along, | TO THE LORD GENERAL CROMWELL, MAY, 1652
With nectar pure his oozy locks he laves,
And hears the unexpressive55 nuptial song,
In the blest kingdoms meek of joy and love.
There entertain him all the saints above,
In solemn troops and sweet societies,
That sing, and singing in their glory move, 180
And wipe the tears for ever from his eyes.
Now, Lycidas, the shepherds weep no more;
Henceforth thou art the Genius of the shore,
In thy large recompense,56 and shalt be good
To all that wander in that perilous flood.

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And on the neck of crownèd Fortune proud
Hast reared God's trophies, and his work

pursued,

While Darwen stream, with blood of Scots imbrued,

And Dunbar field, resounds thy praises loud, And Worcester's laureate wreath: yet much

remains

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6 Proceeding from Presbyterian opponents.

7 At the Darwen Cromwell defeated the Scotch in
1648, at Dunbar in 1650; at Worcester he
defeated Charles I. in 1651.

81. e. state control of religion
*The Protestant Vaudois or Waldenses in south-
ern France were practically crushed out in
1655 because of their refusal to accept the
state religion. They were an ancient sect,
originating in 1170; see line 3. In line 12,
there is an allusion to the triple tiara of the
Pope; in line 14, to the doom of the mystical
Babylon of Revelation xvii and xviii.

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