Page:Comus and other poems - Milton (1906).djvu/83

  Daughter to that good Earl, once President
 * Of Englands Counsel, and her Treasury,
 * Who liv'd in both, unstain'd with gold or fee,
 * And left them both, more in himself content,

Till the sad breaking of that Parlament
 * Broke him, as that dishonest victory
 * At Chæronéa, fatal to liberty
 * Kil'd with report that Old man eloquent,

Though later born, then to have known the dayes
 * Wherin your Father flourisht, yet by you
 * Madam, me thinks I see him living yet;

So well your words his noble vertues praise,
 * That all both judge you to relate them true,
 * And to possess them, Honour'd Margaret.

  A Book was writ of late call'd Tetrachordon;
 * And wov'n close, both matter, form and stile;
 * The Subject new: it walk'd the Town a while,
 * Numbring good intellects; now seldom por'd on.

Cries the stall-reader, bless us! what a word on
 * A title page is this! and some in file
 * Stand spelling fals, while one might walk to Mile-
 * End Green. Why is it harder Sirs then Gordon,

Colkitto, or Macdonnel, or Galasp?
 * Those rugged names to our like mouths grow sleek
 * That would have made Quintilian stare and gasp.

Thy age, like ours, O Soul of Sir John Cheek,
 * Hated not Learning wors then Toad or Asp;
 * When thou taught'st Cambridge, and King Edward Greek.

 Rh