Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/359

 JOHN MILTON

Pillows his chin upon an Orient wave, The flocking shadows pale, Troop to th'inf email jail,

Each fetter'd Ghost slips to his severall grave, And the yellow-skirted Fayes, Fly after the Night-steeds, leaving their Moon-lov'd maze.

But see the Virgin blest, Hath laid her Babe to rest.

Time is our tedious Song should here have ending, Heav'ns youngest teemed Star, Hath fixt her polisht Car,

Her sleeping Lord with Handmaid Lamp attending. And all about the Courtly Stable, Bright-harnest Angels sit in order serviceable.

��On Time

FLY envious Time, till thou run out thy race, Call on the lazy leaden-stepping hourt>, Whose speed is but the heavy Plummets pace, And glut thy self with what thy womb devours, Which is no more then what is false and vain, And meerly mortal dross, So little is our loss, So little is thy gain.

For when as each thing bad thou hast cntomb'd, And last of all, thy greedy self consumed, Then long Eternity shall greet our bliss With an individual kiss; And Joy shall overtake us as a flood, When every thing that is sincerely good

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