L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato

1. Accompagnato
L'Allegro (tenor):
 * Hence loathed Melancholy
 * Of Cerberus, and blackest midnight born,
 * In Stygian cave forlorn
 * 'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy,
 * Find out some uncouth cell,
 * Where brooding darkness spreads his jealous wings,
 * And the night-raven sings;
 * There under ebon shades, and low-brow'd rocks,
 * As ragged as thy locks,
 * In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell.

2. Accompagnato
Il Penseroso (soprano):
 * Hence vain deluding joys,
 * 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.

3. Air
L'Allegro (soprano):
 * Come, thou goddess fair and free,
 * In Heav'n yclep'd Euphrosyne;
 * And by men heart-easing Mirth,
 * Whom lovely Venus, at a birth,
 * With two sister-graces more,
 * To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore.

4. Air
Il Penseroso (soprano):
 * Come rather, goddess sage and holy;
 * Hail, divinest Melancholy,
 * Whose saintly visage is too bright
 * To hit the sense of human sight;
 * Thee bright-hair'd Vesta long of yore,
 * To solitary Saturn bore.

5. Air and Chorus
L'Allegro (tenor):
 * Haste thee, nymph, and bring with thee
 * Jest and youthful jollity,
 * Quips and cranks, and wanton wiles,
 * Nods, and becks, and wreathed smiles
 * Such as hang on Hebe's cheek,
 * And love to live in dimple sleek,
 * Sport, that wrinkled care derides,
 * And laughter, holding both his sides.

Chorus:
 * Haste thee, nymph, and bring with thee
 * Jest, and youthful jollity;
 * Sport, that wrinkled care derides,
 * And laughter, holding both his sides.

6. Air and Chorus
L'Allegro (tenor):
 * Come, and trip it as you go,
 * On the light fantastic toe.

Chorus:
 * Come, and trip it as you go,
 * On the light fantastic toe.

7. Accompagnato
Il Penseroso (soprano):
 * Come, pensive nun, devout and pure,
 * Sober, steadfast, and demure;
 * All in a robe of darkest grain,
 * Flowing with majestic train.

8. Arioso
Il Penseroso (soprano):
 * 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.

9. Accompagnato and Chorus
Il Penseroso (soprano):
 * 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
 * Round about Jove's altar sing.

Chorus:
 * Join with thee calm peace, and quiet,
 * Spare fast, that oft with gods doth diet.

10. Recitative
L'Allegro (tenor):
 * Hence, loathed Melancholy,
 * In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell.
 * But haste thee, Mirth, and bring with thee
 * The mountain nymph, sweet Liberty.

L'Allegro (soprano):
 * And if I give thee honour due,
 * Mirth, admit me of thy crew!

11. Air
L'Allegro (soprano):
 * Mirth, admit me of thy crew,
 * To live with her, and live with thee,
 * In unreproved pleasures free;
 * To hear the lark begin his flight,
 * And singing startle the dull night;
 * Then to come in spite of sorrow,
 * And at my window bid good morrow.
 * Mirth, admit me of thy crew!

12. Accompagnato
Il Penseroso (soprano):
 * First, and chief, on golden wing,
 * The cherub Contemplation bring;
 * And the mute Silence hist along,
 * 'Less Philomel will deign a song,
 * In her sweetest, saddest plight,
 * Smoothing the rugged brow of night.

13. Air
Il Penseroso (soprano):
 * Sweet bird, that shun'st the noise of folly,
 * Most musical, most melancholy!
 * Thee, chauntress, oft the woods among,
 * I woo to hear thy even-song.
 * Or, missing thee, I walk unseen,
 * On the dry smooth-shaven green,
 * To behold the wand'ring moon
 * Riding near her highest noon.
 * Sweet bird. . . da capo

14. Recitative
L'Allegro (bass):
 * If I give thee honour due,
 * Mirth, admit me of thy crew!

15. Air
L'Allegro (bass):
 * Mirth, admit me of thy crew!
 * To listen how the hounds and horn
 * Cheerly rouse the slumb'ring morn,
 * From the side of some hoar hill,
 * Through the high wood echoing shrill.

16. Air
Il Penseroso (soprano):
 * 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.

17. Air
Il Penseroso (soprano or tenor):
 * Far from all resort of mirth,
 * Save the cricket on the hearth,
 * Or the bellman's drowsy charm,
 * To bless the doors from nightly harm.

18. Recitative
L'Allegro (tenor):
 * If I give thee honour due,
 * Mirth, admit me of thy crew!

19. Air
L'Allegro (tenor or soprano):
 * Let me wander, not unseen,
 * By hedge-row elms on hillocks green.
 * There, the ploughman, near at hand,
 * Whistles over the furrow'd land,
 * And the milkmaid singeth blithe,
 * And the mower whets his scythe,
 * And every shepherd tells his tale
 * Under the hawthorn in the dale.

20a. Air
L'Allegro (soprano):
 * Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures,
 * While the landscape round it measures
 * Russet lawns, and fallows grey,
 * Where the nibbling flocks do stray.

21. Accompagnato
L'Allegro (soprano or bass):
 * Mountains, on whose barren breast
 * The lab'ring clouds do often rest:
 * Meadows trim with daisies pied,
 * Shallow brooks, and rivers wide
 * Tow'rs and battlements it sees,
 * Bosom'd high in tufted trees.

20a. Air
L'Allegro (soprano):
 * Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures,
 * While the landscape round it measures
 * Russet lawns, and fallows grey,
 * Where the nibbling flocks do stray.

22. Air and Chorus
L'Allegro (soprano or tenor):
 * Or let the merry bells ring round,
 * And the jocund rebecks sound
 * To many a youth, and many a maid,
 * Dancing in the checquer'd shade.

Chorus:
 * And young and old come forth to play
 * On a sunshine holiday,
 * Till the livelong daylight fail.
 * Thus past the day, to bed they creep,
 * By whisp'ring winds soon lull'd asleep.

23. Accompagnato
Il Penseroso (soprano):
 * Hence, vain deluding joys,
 * The brood of Folly without father bred;
 * How little you bestead,
 * Or fill the fixed mind with all your toys.
 * Oh, 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 worIds, or what vast regions hold
 * Th'immortal mind that hath forsook
 * Her mansion in this fleshly nook.

24. Air
Il Penseroso (soprano):
 * Sometimes let gorgeous Tragedy
 * In sceptred 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.

25. Air
Il Penseroso (soprano):
 * But oh, sad virgin, that thy pow'r
 * Might raise Musaeus from his bow'r,
 * Or bid the soul of Orpheus sing
 * Such notes as, warbled to the string,
 * Drew iron tears down Pluto's cheeks
 * And made hell grant what love did seek.

26. Recitative
Il Penseroso (soprano):
 * Thus night oft see me in thy pale career,
 * Till unwelcome morn appear.

27. Solo & Chorus
L'Allegro (bass):
 * Populous cities please me then,
 * And the busy hum of men.

Chorus:
 * Populous 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.
 * Populous cities. . . da capo

28. Air
L'Allegro (soprano or tenor):
 * There let Hymen oft appear
 * 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.

29. Accompagnato
Il Penseroso (soprano):
 * Me, when the sun begins to fling
 * His flaring beams, me goddess bring
 * To arched walks of twilight groves,
 * And shadows brown that Sylvan loves;
 * There in close covert by some brook,
 * Where no profaner eye may look.

30. Air
Il Penseroso (soprano):
 * Hide me from day's garish eye,
 * While the bee with honied thigh,
 * Which at her flow'ry worth doth sing,
 * And the waters murmuring,
 * With such consort as they keep
 * Entice the dewy-feather'd sleep;
 * And let some strange mysterious dream
 * Wave at his wings in airy stream
 * Of lively portraiture display'd,
 * Softly on my eyelids laid.
 * Then as I wake, sweet music breathe,
 * Above, about, or underneath,
 * Sent by some spirit to mortals good,
 * Or th'unseen genius of the wood.

31. Air
L'Allegro (tenor):
 * I'll 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.

32. Air
L'Allegro (soprano):
 * 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;
 * With wanton heed, and giddy cunning,
 * The melting voice through mazes running,
 * Untwisting all the chains that tie
 * The hidden soul of harmony.

33. Air
L'Allegro (soprano):
 * Orpheus' self may heave his head
 * From golden slumbers on a bed
 * Of heap'd Elysian flow'rs, and hear
 * Such strains as would have won the ear
 * Of Pluto, to have quite set free
 * His half-regain'd Eurydice.

34. Air and Chorus
L'Allegro (tenor):
 * These delights if thou canst give,
 * Mirth, with thee I mean to live.

Chorus:
 * These delights if thou canst give,
 * Mirth, with thee we mean to live.

35. Recitative
Il Penseroso (soprano):
 * But let my due feet never fail
 * To walk the studious cloister's pale,
 * And love the high-embowed roof,
 * With antic pillars' massy proof,
 * And storied windows richly dight,
 * Casting a dim religious light.

36. Solo & Chorus
Chorus:
 * There let the pealing organ blow
 * To the full voic'd quire below,
 * In service high and anthems clear!

Il Penseroso (soprano):
 * And let their sweetness, through mine ear,
 * Dissolve me into ecstasies,
 * And bring all Heav'n before mine eyes!

37. Air
Il Penseroso (soprano):
 * 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 ev'ry star that Heav'n doth show,
 * And ev'ry herb that sips the dew;
 * Till old experience do attain
 * To something like prophetic strain.

38. Solo and Chorus
Il Penseroso (soprano):
 * These pleasures, Melancholy, give,
 * And I with thee will choose to live.

Chorus:
 * These pleasures, Melancholy, give,
 * And we with thee will choose to live.

39. Accompagnato
Il Moderato (bass):
 * Hence, boast not, ye profane,
 * Of vainly-fancied, little-tasted pleasure,
 * Pursued beyond all measure,
 * And by its own excess transform'd to pain.

40. Air
Il Moderato (bass):
 * Come, with native lustre shine,
 * Moderation, grace divine,
 * Whom the wise God of nature gave,
 * Mad mortals from themselves to save.
 * Keep, as of old, the middle way,
 * Nor deeply sad, nor idly gay,
 * But still the same in look and gait,
 * Easy, cheerful and sedate.

41. Accompagnato and Chorus
Il Moderato (bass):
 * Sweet temp'rance in thy right hand bear,
 * With her let rosy health appear,
 * And in thy left contentment true,
 * Whom headlong passion never knew;
 * Frugality by bounty's side,
 * Fast friends, though oft as foes belied;
 * Chaste love, by reason led secure,
 * With joy sincere, and pleasure pure;
 * Happy life from Heav'n descending,
 * Crowds of smiling years attending:
 * All this company serene,
 * Join, to fill thy beauteous train.

Chorus:
 * All this company serene,
 * Join, to fill thy beauteous train.

42. Air
Il Moderato (soprano):
 * Come, with gentle hand restrain
 * Those who fondly court their bane,
 * One extreme with caution shunning,
 * To another blindly running.
 * Kindly teach, how blest are they,
 * Who nature's equal rules obey;
 * Who safely steer two rocks between,
 * And prudent keep the golden mean.

43. Recitative
Il Moderato (soprano or tenor):
 * No more short life they then will spend
 * In straying farther from its end,
 * In frantic mirth, and childish play,
 * In dance and revels, night and day;
 * Or else like lifeless statues seeming,
 * Ever musing, moping, dreaming.

44. Air
Il Moderato (soprano or tenor):
 * Each action will derive new grace
 * From order, measure, time, and place;
 * Till life the goodly structure rise
 * In·due proportion to the skies.

45. Duet
 Il Moderato (soprano or tenor):
 * As steals the morn upon the night,
 * And melts the shades away:
 * So Truth does Fancy's charm dissolve,
 * And rising Reason puts to flight
 * The fumes that did the mind involve,
 * Restoring intellectual day.

46. Chorus

 * Thy pleasures, Moderation, give,
 * In them alone we truly live.