Now that the winter's gone, the earth has lost [the frost Her snow-white robes; and now no more Candies the grass, or casts an icy cream Upon the silver lake or crystal stream.

[earth, But the warm sun thaws the benumbèd And makes it tender; gives a second birth To the dead swallows; wakes in hollow tree The drowsy cuckoo and the humble bee.

Now do a choir of chirping minstrels bring In triumph to the world the youthful spring: The valleys, hills, and woods in rich array, Welcome the coming of the longed-for May.

-::

JOHN MILTON.
1608-1674.

THE EARTHLY PARADISE.

EDEN stretched her line From Auran eastward to the royal towers Of great Seleucia, built by Grecian kings,

Or where the sons of Eden long before Dwelt in Telassar. In this pleasant soil His far more pleasant garden God ordained;

Out of the fertile ground He caused to grow All trees of noblest kind for sight, smell, taste;

And all amid them stood the Tree of Life, High eminent, blooming ambrosial fruit Of vegetable gold; and next to Life Our death, the Tree of Knowledge, grew fast by, [ing ill. Knowledge of good bought dear by knowSouthward through Eden went a river large, Nor changed his course, but through the shaggy hill [thrown Passed underneath ingulfed; for God had That mountain as His garden mound, high raised [veins Upon the rapid current, which, through Of porous earth with kindly thirst up drawn, Rose a fresh fountain, and with many a rill Watered the garden; thence united fell Down the steep glade, and met the nether flood, [appears; Which from his darksome passage now And now divided into four main streams Runs diverse, wandering many a famous realm [account; And country, whereof here needs no But rather to tell how, if art could tell, How from that sapphire fount the crispèd brooks,

Rolling on orient pearl and sands of gold, With mazy error under pendent shades Ran nectar, visiting each plant, and fed Flowers worthy of Paradise, which not nice art

In beds and curious knots, but nature boon Poured forth profuse on hill, and dale, and plain, [smote Both where the morning sun first warmly The open field, and where the unpiercèd shade [was this place Imbrowned the noontide bowers. Thus A happy rural seat of various view : Groves whose rich trees wept odorous

gums and balm, [rind Others whose fruit burnished with golden Hung amiable, Hesperian fables true, If true, here only, and of delicious taste. Betwixt them lawns, or level downs, and flocks

Grazing the tender herb, were interposed,
Or palmy hillock, or the flowery lap
Of some irriguous valley spread her store,
Flowers of all hue, and without thorn the

rose.

[field

Led on th' eternal spring. Not that fair Of Enna, where Proserpine gathering flowers,

Herself a fairer flower, by gloomy Dis Was gathered, which cost Ceres all that pain [sweet grove

To seek her through the world, nor that Of Daphne by Orontes and the inspired Castalian spring might with this Paradise Of Eden strive nor that Nyseian isle Girt with the river Triton, where old Cham, Whom Gentiles Ammon call and Libyan Jove,

Hid Amalthea and her florid son [eye; Young Bacchus from his stepdame Rhea's Nor where Abassin kings their issue guard, Mount Amara, though this by some supposed

True Paradise, under the Ethiop line

By Nilus' head, enclosed with shining rock,
A whole day's journey high, but wide remote
From this Assyrian garden, where the fiend
Saw undelighted, all delight, all kind
Of living creatures new to sight and strange.

ADAM AND EVE.

Two of far nobler shape erect and tall, Godlike erect, with native honour clad In native majesty, seemed lords of all, And worthy seemed; for in their looks divine

The image of their glorious Maker shone, Truth, wisdom, sanctitude severe and pure, Severe, but in true filial freedom placed, Whence true authority in men: though both Not equal, as their sex not equal, seemed. For contemplation he and valour formed, For softness she and sweet attractive grace; He for God only, she for God in him.

So hand in hand they passed, the loveliest pair

That ever since in love's embraces met; Adam the goodliest man of men since born His sons, the fairest of her daughters Eve. Under a tuft of shade, that on a green Stood whisp'ring soft, by a fresh fountain side

They sat them down; and after no more toil Of their sweet gard'ning labour than sufficed To recommend cool Zephyr, and made ease More easy, wholesome thirst and appetite More grateful, to their supper fruits they fell, [boughs Nectarine fruits, which the compliant Yielded them, side-long as they sat reclined On the soft downy bank damasked_with flow'rs.

[rind,

The savoury pulp they chew, and in the Still as they thirsted, scoop the brimming

In wood or wilderness, forest or den; Sporting the lion ramped, and in his paw Dandled the kid; bears, tigers, ounces, pards,

Gambolled before them; th' unwieldy elephant

To make them mirth used all his might, and wreathed

His lithe proboscis; close the serpent sly
Insinuating wove with Gordian twine
His braided train, and of his fatal guile
Gave proof unheeded; others on the grass
Couched, and now filled with pasture
gazing sat,

Or bedward ruminating: for the sun
Declined was hasting now with prone career
To th' ocean isles, and in th' ascending scale
Of heav'n the stars that usher evening rose.

THE DESCENT OF RAPHAEL.

Down thither prone in flight

He speeds, and through the vast ethereal sky

Sails between worlds and worlds, with steady wing,

Now on the polar winds, then with quick fan

Winnows the buxom air; till within soar Of tow'ring eagles, to all the fowls he

seems

A phoenix, gazed by all, as that sole bird,
When, to inshrine his reliques in the sun's
Bright temple, to Egyptian Thebes he flies,
At once on th' eastern cliff of Paradise
He lights, and to his proper shape returns
A seraph winged: six wings he wore, to
shade

His lineaments divine; the pair that clad Each shoulder broad came mantling o'er his breast

With regal ornament; the middle pair Girt like a starry zone his waist, and round Skirted his loins and thighs with downy gold [his feet And colours dipped in heav'n; the third Shadowed from either heel with feathered mail [stood, Sky-tinctured grain. Like Maia's son he And shook his plumes, that heavenly fragrance filled [the bands

The circuit wide. Straight knew him all Of angels under watch; and to his state, And to his message high, in honour rise; For on some message high they guessed him bound.

Their glittering tents he passed, and now is come [myrrh,

Into the blissful field, through groves of And flow'ring odours, cassia, nard, and balm,

A wilderness of sweets; for nature here Wantoned as in her prime, and played at will [sweet,

Her virgin fancies, pouring forth more Wild above rule or art; enormous bliss.

THE EXILES FROM EDEN.
Now too nigh

Th' Archangel stood, and from the other hill

To their fixed station all in bright array The Cherubim descended; on the ground Gilding meteorous, as ev'ning mist

Tells us, the day himself's not far.
And see where, breaking from the night,
He gilds the western hills with light!
With him old Janus doth appear,
Peeping into the future year,
With such a look as seems to say
The prospect is not good that way.
Thus do we rise ill sights to see,
And 'gainst ourselves do prophesy;
When the prophetic fear of things
A more tormenting mischief brings,
More full of soul-tormenting gall
Than direst mischiefs can befall.
But stay! but stay! methinks my sight
Better informed by clearer light,
Discerns sereneness in that brow,
That all contracted seemed but now.
His reversed face may show distaste,
And frown upon the ills are past;
But that which this way looks is clear,
And smiles upon the New-born Year.
He looks too from a place so high,
The year lies open to his eye;
And all the moments open are
To the exact discoverer.

Yet more and more he smiles upon
The happy revolution.

Why should we then suspect or fear
The influences of a year,

So smiles upon us the first morn,
And speaks us good so soon as born?
Plague on 't! the last was ill enough,
This cannot but make better proof;
Or, at the worst, as we brushed through
The last, why, so we may this too;
And then the next in reason should
Be superexcellently good;
For the worst ills (we daily see)
Have no more perpetuity

Than the best fortunes that do fall;
Which also bring us wherewithal
Longer their being to support,
Than those do of the other sort.
And who has one good year in three,
And yet repines at destiny,
Appears ungrateful in the case,
And merits not the good he has.
Then let us welcome the New Guest
With lusty brimmers of the best ;
Mirth always should Good Fortune meet,
And renders e'en Disaster sweet;

And though the Princess turn her back,
Let us but line ourselves with sack,
We better shall by far hold out,
Till the next year she face about.

-:0:

JOHN DRYDEN. 1631-1700.

THE GOOD PARSON.

For, letting down the golden chain from high,

He drew his audience upward to the sky; And oft with holy hymns he charmed their ears,

(A music more melodious than the spheres); For David left him, when he went to rest, His lyre; and after him he sung the best. He bore his great commission in his look ; But sweetly tempered awe, and softened

all he spoke.

He preached the joys of heaven and pains of hell,

And warned the sinner with becoming zeal; But on eternal mercy loved to dwell.

He taught the Gospel rather than the Law; And forced himself to drive; but loved to draw.

For fear but freezes minds: but love, like heat,

Exhales the soul sublime, to seek her native seat.

To threats the stubborn sinner oft is hard, Wrapped in his crimes, against the storm prepared ;

But, when the milder beams of mercy play, He melts, and throws his cumbrous cloak away.

Lightning and thunder (heaven s artillery) As harbingers before th' Almighty fly: Those but proclaim His style, and disappear; [there.

The stiller sound succeeds, and God is

The tithes his parish freely paid he took; But never sued, or cursed with bell or book. With patience bearing wrong, but offering

none,

Since every man is free to lose his own. The country churls, according to their kind

(Who grudge their dues, and love to be behind),

The less he sought his offerings, pinched the more,

And praised a priest contented to be poor.

Yet of his little he had some to spare, To feed the famished and to clothe the bare; For mortified he was to that degree, A poorer than himself he would not see. "True priests," he said, "and preachers of the Word,

Were only stewards of their sovereign Lord;

Nothing was theirs, but all the public

store;

Intrusted riches, to relieve the poor.

For priests, he said, are patterns for the rest,

(The gold of heaven, who bear the God impressed):

For, when the precious coin is kept unclean, The sovereign's image is no longer seen. If they be foul on whom the people trust, Well may the baser brass contract a rust.

The prelate for his holy life he prized; The worldly pomp of prelacy despised. His Saviour came not with a gaudy show, Nor was His kingdom of the world below. Patience in want, and poverty of mind, These marks of church and churchmen he designed,

And living taught, and dying left behind. The crown he wore was of the pointed thorn;

In purple he was crucified, not born. They who contend for place and high

degree

Are not his sons, but those of Zebedee.