Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1900.djvu/351

 311. Il Penseroso

Hence vain deluding joyes, The brood of folly without father bred, How little you bested, Or fill the fixèd mind with all your toyes; Dwell in som idle brain, And fancies fond 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 Goddes, sage and holy, Hail divinest Melancholy, Whose Saintly visage is too bright To hit the Sense of human sight; And therfore to our weaker view, Ore laid with black staid Wisdoms hue. Black, but such as in esteem, Prince Memnons sister might beseem, Or that Starr'd Ethiope Queen that strove To set her beauties praise above The Sea Nymphs, and their powers offended. Yet thou art higher far descended, Thee bright-hair'd Vesta long of yore, To solitary Saturn bore; His daughter she (in Saturns raign, Such mixture was not held a stain) Oft in glimmering Bowres, and glades He met her, and in secret shades Of woody Ida's inmost grove, Whilst yet there was no fear of Jove. Com pensive Nun, devout and pure,