Of lively portraiture display'd,
Softly on my eye-lids laid.

And, as I wake, sweet music breathe
Above, about, or underneath,

Sent by some spirit to mortal good,
Or the unseen genius of the wood.
But let my due feet never fail
To walk the studious cloisters pale,1
And love the high-embowed roof,
With antique pillars massy proof,
And storied 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 ecstacies,

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 spell
Of every star that Heaven doth show,
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.2

FROM LYCIDAS."

Return, Alpheus, the dread voice is past,
That shrunk thy streams; return, Sicilian Muse,3
And call the vales, and bid them hither cast
Their bells, and flowerets of a thousand hues!
Ye valleys low, where the mild whispers use1
Of shades, and wanton winds, and gushing brooks,
On whose fresh lap the swart-stars sparely looks;
Throw hither all your quaint enamell'd eyes,

"Perhaps the studious cloister's pale.' Pale, enclosure."-T. Warton. "I believe pale to be an adjective, and to mean sombre."-Brydges. The monastic and cathedral associations of this passage form another proof that Milton yet retained much of "church" feelings ;-spell, learn.

2 These two poems are in some measure to be viewed as one. Their parts are antithetic. L'Allegro commences his enjoyments with the morning and the lark; Penseroso with the evening and the nightingale. Their beautiful imagery is sprinkled over with terms and objects borrowed or rather adapted from earlier poets; and they have formed a magazine for many succeeding describers of nature.

3 That shrunk thy streams, i. e. that silenced my pastoral poetry.-Warton. "The dread voice."-See Ps. civ. 7. For the fable of the loves of the Elean river Alpheus, and the nymph of the Ortygian fountain Arethusa, see Virg. Aen. iii. 692-696, and Ovid, Met. v. 487. These names are used in connection with pastoral poetry from the Sicilian bard Theocritus.-Virg. Ecl. iv. 1, and x. 1.

Frequent; Newton.

The dog-star; the star of the hot season, called swart, perhaps from its supposed effects, Hor. Odes, iii. 29, 18.

That on the green turf suck the honied showers,
And purple all the ground with vernal flowers.
Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies,1
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-attired wood-bine,
With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head,
And every flower that sad embroidery wears:
Bid Amaranthus all his beauty shed,

And daffadillies fill their cups with tears, 2
To strew the laureat herse where Lycid lies.
For, so to interpose a little ease,

Let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise;
Ays me! whilst thee the shores and sounding seas
Wash far away, where'er thy bones are hurl'd,
Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides,

Where thou, perhaps, under the whelming tide,
Visit'st the bottom of the monstrous world ;*
Or whether thou, to our moist vows denied,
Sleep'st by the fable of Bellerus old,
Where the great vision of the guarded mount
Looks toward Namancos' and Bayona's hold;
Look homeward, angel, now, and melt with ruth:
And, O ye dolphins, waft the hapless youth.

Weep no more, woful shepherds, weep no more,
For Lycidas, your sorrow, is not dead,

Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor;

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:

So Lycidas sunk low, but mounted high,

Through the dear might of Him that walk'd the waves;

Where, other groves and other streams along,

With nectar pure his oozy locks he laves,
And hears the unexpressive nuptial song,
In the blest kingdoms meek of joy and love.

Rathe, early; the opposite is sere, late; we retain the comparative rather as an adverb.-Compare Shakesp. Winter's Tale, Act IV. Sc. 5. Pale primroses, &c. Freak'd; se note 11, p. 11. 2 Compare "I know a bank," &c.-Shakesp. Mids. Night's Dream, Act. II. Sc. 2. 3 A Greek interjection.

The ocean full of monsters. Lycidas" was composed on the death of Milton's friend, Mr Edward King, who, in a voyage to Ireland, was shipwrecked and drowned on the English coast in 1637.-Comp. Hor. Odes, i. 3, 18. Supposed to be a Cornish giant.

St Michael's Mount (Mount's Bay, in Cornwall), called guarded, either on account of the fortress once erected on it, or on account of the tradition of the Archangel Michael having been seen seated on it. The "great vision" is called on by Milton to " Look homeward now, and regard with pity the corpse of Lycidas."-See Warton's Note. Campbell alludes to a similar superstition of St Columba descending to count the Hebrides.-See Pleasures of Hope.

The ancient Numantia is supposed to be meant. Bayona's hold; the French Bayonne, cr the Spanish Bayona on the coast of Galicia.

So Horace of Augustus, Odes, iii. 10, 11. Unexpressive, see note 7, p. 87.

THE LADY'S SONG IN 66 COMUS."

Sweet Echo, sweetest nymph, that liv'st unseen
Within thy aery shell,

By slow Meander's margent green,
And in the violet-embroider'd vale,

Where the love-lorn nightingale

Nightly to thee her sad song mourneth well;
Canst thou not tell me of a gentle pair
That likest thy Narcissus1 are?

O, if thou have

Hid them in some flowery cave,

Tell me but where,

Sweet queen of parley, daughter of the sphere!
So may'st thou be translated to the skies,
And give resounding grace to all Heaven's harmonies.
FROM 66 PARADISE LOST."

BOOK I.

THE INVOCATION AND INTRODUCTION.
Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,2

3

Sing, heavenly Muse, that on the secret top
Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire

That Shepherd, who first taught the chosen seed,
In the beginning, how the Heavens and Earth
Rose out of Chaos: Or, if Sion hill

Delight thee more, and Siloa's brook that flow'd
Fast by the oracle of God; I thence
Invoke thy aid to my adventurous song,
That with no middle flight intends to soar
Above the Aonian mount, while it pursues
Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme.
And chiefly thou, O Spirit, that dost prefer

6

1 For Narcissus and Echo, see Ovid, Met. iii. 379. Milton, in "aery shell" and "daughter of the sphere," dresses Echo in his own mythology. Pair, the lady's brothers 2 The simple sublimity of Milton's proposition of his subject has been often admired.-See Byron's" Hints from Horace,"-Not so if you, &c. ; and Addison, Spectator, No. 303. 3 He invokes with propriety to a sacred subject the muses that inspired Moses in Oreb and David in Sion. The mythological muses are associated with hills and streams.-See Book iii. 27.

4 Or Siloam, in the valley to the south of Jerusalem, running along the base of Sion, and supplying the "pool" of the same name, Isaiah viii. 5.

Helicon; Aonia is an appellation of Beotia; the allusion is to Hesiod, who, like Milton, sung in his " Theogony," of gods.

He invokes literary ability for his work from an imaginary muse; but the moral and religious qualities requisite for it from the Holy Ghost. "His widow was wont to say that he. really looked on himself as inspired. In his Reason of Church Government,' speaking of his design of writing a poem in the English language, he says, "it was not to be ob tained ⚫ but by devout prayer of that eternal Spirit who can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and sends out his seraphim with the hallowed fire of his altar to touch and purify the lips of whom he pleases."-Newton.

Before all temples the upright heart and pure,
Instruct me, for thou know'st; thou from the first
Wast present, and, with mighty wings out-spread,
Dove-like sat'st brooding1 on the vast abyss
And mad'st it pregnant: what in me is dark
Illumine; what is low raise and support;
That to the height of this great argument
I may assert eternal Providence,

And justify the ways of God to men.

Say first, for Heaven hides nothing from thy view,
Nor the deep tract of Hell; say first, what cause
Mov'd our grand parents, in that happy state,
Favour'd of Heaven so highly, to fall off
From their Creator, and transgress his will
For one restraint, lords of the world besides?
Who first seduc'd them to that foul revolt?
The infernal Serpent; he it was, whose guile,
Stirr'd up with envy and revenge, deceiv'd
The mother of mankind, what time his pride
Had cast him out from Heaven, with all his host
Of rebel angels; by whose aid, aspiring
To set himself in glorys above his peers,
He trusted to have equalled the Most High,
If he oppos'd; and, with ambitious aim
Against the throne and monarchy of God,
Rais'd impious war in Heaven, and battle proud,
With vain attempt. Him the Almighty power
Hurl'd headlong flaming from the ethereal sky,
With hideous ruin and combustion, down
To bottomless perdition; there to dwell
In adamantine chains and penal fire,
Who durst defy the Omnipotent to arms.

THE FALLEN ANGELS IN THE BURNING LAKE.

The superior fiend

Was moving toward the shore: his ponderous shield,
Ethereal temper, massy, large and round,

Behind him cast; the broad circumference

8

Hung on his shoulders like the Moon, whose orb

The Hebrew word translated "moved," means "brooded," as a bird on her eggs. Milton studied the scriptures in the original language.--Newton.

2 Comp. Hom. Iliad ii. 486; Virg. Aen. vii. 645.-Newton; comp. also Aen. i. 9-12. 3 Viz. in the peculiar glory of Divinity, for he was already above his peers in angelic glory, as Bentley objected.

An allusion perhaps to Aen. i. 44, or to Luke x. 18.

5 See note 12, p. 8.

6 Satan.

Of the lake. Having roused from the lethargy of their fall his nearest mate, Beelze bub, he proposes to search for a more eligible place for rest than the fiery waves into which they had been cast.

The comparison properly ends with moon; but, as is the practice of Homer and Virgil, Milton surrounds his similes with correlative objects and pictures, that heighten their magnificence.-See the succeeding comparisons in this passage; see also Book i. 768, and ii. 636.

4

Through optic glass the Tuscan artist1 views
At evening from the top of Fesolé,2
Or in Valdarno,3 to descry new lands,
Rivers, or mountains in her spotty globe.
His spear, to equal which the tallest pine
Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast
Of some great ammiral, were but a wand,
He walk'd with, to support uneasy steps
Over the burning marle, not like those steps
On Heaven's azure; and the torrid clime
Smote on him sore besides, vaulted with fire:
Nathless he so endur'd till on the beach
Of that inflamed sea he stood, and call'd
His legions, angel forms, who lay intranc'd,
Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks
In Vallombrosa, where the Etrurian shades,
High over-arch'd, imbower; or scatter'd sedge
Afloat, when with fierce winds Orion' arm'd

Hath vex'd the Red-Sea coast, whose waves o'erthrew
Busiris and his Memphian chivalry,

While with perfidious hatred they pursued
The sojourners of Goshen, who beheld
From the safe shore their floating carcases

And broken chariot wheels: so thick bestrewn,
Abject and lost lay these, covering the flood,
Under amazement of their hideous change.
He call'd so loud, that all the hollow deep
Of Hell resounded. "Princes, potentates,

Warriors, the flower of Heaven, once yours, now lost,
If such astonishment as this can seize

Eternal spirits; or have ye chos'n this place,

After the toil of battle to repose

Your wearied virtue, for the ease you find

To slumber here, as in the vales of Heaven?

Or in this abject posture have ye sworn

Galileo, the Florentine astronomer, whom Milton visited when he was in Italy.

2 Fiesole, ancient Fesulae, three miles north-east of Florence.

3 Vale of the Arno near Florence, celebrated for its scenery. See Eustace's Classical Tour, vol. iii. p. 328.

The Saracen Emirs, who commanded the squadrons that, during the seventh and succeeding centuries, terrified the Christian coasts of the Mediterranean, furnished, it is said, the origin of the term admiral in various forms in European languages.-See Du Cange Gloss., Amir. 5 Nevertheless.

Milton remembers the scenery of his youthful travels. The luxuriant foliage of a southern country heightens the illustration intended to be conveyed. For Vallombrosa (shady vale), see Eustace's Classical Tour, vol. iii. p. 371.

7 The figure of the constellation Orion is an armed man. The ancients, for the purposes of agriculture and navigation, paid great attention to the connection between the weather and the movements of the heavenly bodies. Virg. Georg. i. 204, &c.— Nimbosus Orion." Aen. i. 535. Scattered sedge; the Hebrew name of the Red Sea implies the sedgy sea.-Newton.

The oppressor Pharaoh is by some writers called Busiris.-Brydges. Busiris, an Egyptian tyrant, was slain by Hercules -See Keightley's Mythology, p. 323. Many Egyptian kings bore this name. There was a city Busiris in the Delta, with a temple of Isis.-Herod. ii. 59-61 Memphian; Memphis, the celebrated ancient capital of Lower Egypt, was near the site of the modern Cairo.

R