Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures,
Whilst the landscape round it measures;
Russet lawns, and fallows gray,

Where the nibbling flocks do stray;
Mountains, on whose barren breast
The labouring clouds do often rest;
Meadows trim with daisies pide,
Shallow brooks, and rivers wide:
Towers and battlements it sees
Bosom'd high in tufted trees,
Where perhaps some Beauty lies,
The Cynosure of neighbouring eyes.
Hard by, a cottage chimney smokes,
From betwixt two aged oaks,
Where Corydon and Thyrsis, met,
Are at their savoury dinner set

Of herbs, and other country messes,

85

Which the neat-handed Phyllis dresses;

And then in haste her bower she leaves,

With Thestylis to bind the sheaves;

Or, if the earlier season lead,

1o the tann'd haycock in the mead. Sometimes with secure delight

90

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 chequer'd shade;

95

And young and old come forth to play
On a sunshine holy-day,

Till the livelong daylight fail:

Then to the spicy nut-brown ale,

100

With stories told of many a feat,
How fairy Mab the junkets eat:
She was pinch'd, and pull'd, she sed,
And he, by friar's lantern led,
Tells how the drudging Goblin swet,
To earn his cream-bowl duly set,
When in one night, ere glimpse of morn,
His shadowy flail hath thresh'd the corn,

105

That ten day-labourers could not end;
Then lies him down the lubber fiend,

110

And, stretch'd out all the chimney's length,
Basks at the fire his hairy strength;

And crop-full out of doors he flings,

Ere the first cock his matin rings.

Thus done the tales, to bed they creep,

115

To win her grace, whom all commend.
There let Hymen oft appear

125

In saffron robe, with taper clear,

And pomp, and feast, and revelry,
With mask, 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,

130

Or sweetest Shakspeare, 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 meeting soul may pierce,
In notes, with many a winding bout
Of linked sweetness long drawn out,

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140

With wanton heed, and giddy cunning;

The melting voice through mazes running,
Untwisting all the chains that tie

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,

And fancies fond with gaudy shapes possess,
As thick and numberless

As the gay motes that people the sunbeams; Or likest hovering dreams,

The fickle pensioners of Morpheus' train.

10

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

15

O'erlaid with black, staid Wisdom's hue;
Black, but such as in esteem

Prince Memnon's sister might beseem,

offended:

Or that starr'd Ethiop queen that strove
To set her beauty's praise above
The Sea-Nymphs, and their powers
Yet thou art higher far descended:
Thee bright-hair'd 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 cyprus lawn,
Over thy decent shoulders drawn.
Come, but keep thy wonted state,
With even step, and musing gait;

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25

30

35

And looks commercing with the skies,
Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes:
There, held in holy passion still,
Forget thyself to marble, till

40

With a sad leaden downward cast

Thou fix them on the earth as fast:

And join with thee calm Peace, and Quiet,

45

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:

50

But first, and chiefest, with thee bring,
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,

55

In her sweetest saddest plight,

Smoothing the rugged brow of Night;

While Cynthia checks her dragon yoke,

Gently o'er the accustom'd oak:

60

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

Most musical, most melancholy!

Thee, chauntress, oft, the woods among,