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;
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,
Which the neat-handed Phillis dresses;
And then in haste her bow'r she leaves,
With Thestylis to bind the sheaves;
Or if the earlier season lead,
To the tann'd hay-cock 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 chequer'd shade;
And young and old come forth to play
On a sunshine holiday,

Till the live-long day-light fail;
Then to the spicy nut-brown ale,
With stories told of many a feat,
How fairy Mab the junkets eat;
She was pinch'd and pull'd, she said,
And he by friar's lanthorn led;
Tells how the drudging Goblin sweat
To earn his cream-l
m-bowl duly set,
When in one night, ere glimpse of morn
His shadowy flail had thresh'd the corn
That ten day labourers could not end;
Then lies him down the lubber fiend,
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 mattin rings.
Thus done the tales, to bed they creep,
By whispering winds soon lull'd asleep.
Tow'red cities please us then
And the busy hum of men,

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 commend :
There let Hymen oft appear

In saffron robe, with taper elear;
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

Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child,
Warble his native wood-notes wild.
And ever against eating cares 9
Lap me in soft Lydian airs 2
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 cunning,
The melting voice through mazes running.
Untwisting all the chains that tie

The hidden souls of Harmony:
That Orpheus' self may heave his head.
From golden slumber on a bed

Of heapt Elysian flowers, and hear

Such strains as would have won the ear.

Of Pluto, to have quite set free

His half-regain'd Eurydice.

These delights if thou canst give,

Mirth, with thee I mean to live. MILTON.

CHAP. X VIL

Il Penseroso.

H2xcz, vain deluding joys,

LENCE,

The brood of Felly without Father bred! How little you bested,

Or fil the fixed mind with all your toys! Dwell in some idle brain,

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

As the gay motes that people the sun-beams, 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 beseem,
Or that starr'd Ethiope queen that strove
To set her beauty's praise above

The sea-nymphs, and their powers offended:
Yet thou art higher far descended;

The 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, dévout and pure,
Sober, stedfast and demure,
All in a robe of darkest grain,
Flowing with majestic train ji
And sable stole of cypress lawn,
O'er thy decend shoulders drawn..

Come, but keep thy wonted state,
With even step, and musing gait,

And looks commercing with the skies,
Thy wrapt 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; 19
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 chernb Contemplation:

And the mute silence hiss'd along,
'Lest 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 accustom'd oak:

Sweet bird, that shunn'st the noise of Folly,
Most musical, most melancholy !

Thee, chauntress, oft the woods among,
I woo to hear thy evening 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
Thro' the heav'n's wide pathless way:
And oft as if her head she bow'd

Stooping thro' a
thro' a fleecy cloud.

Oft on a plat of rising ground
I hear the far-off Curfew sound,
Over some wide-water'd shore
Swinging slow with sullen roar.
Or if the air will not permit,

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 2
Or the bellman's drowsy charm,
To bless the doors from nightly harm.
Or let my lamp at midnight hour,
Be seen in some high lonely tow'r,
Where I may oft out-watch the Bear
With thrice great Hermes, or unsphere
The spirit of Plato, to unfold

What worlds, or what vast regions hold
The immortal mind that hath forsook
Her mansion in this fleshly nook :
And of those dæmons 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 scepter'd 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 buskin'd 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,

That own'd the virtuous ring and glass,
And of the wond'rous horse of brass,
On which the Tartar king did ride;
And if aught else great bards beside
sage and solemn tunes have sung,
Of tourneys and of trophies hung,

In