Page:The American fugitive in Europe.djvu/240

232 the old pile, which give it a picturesque appearance. It was here that the exquisite effusion of the youthful genius of Milton—The Masque of Comus—was composed, and performed before His Majesty Charles I., in 1631. Little did the king think that the poet would one day be secretary to the man who should put him to death and rule his kingdom. Although a ruin, this fact is enough to excite interest, and to cause one to venerate the old building, and to do homage to the memory of the divine poet who hallowed it with his immortal strains. From a visitor's book that is kept at the gate-house, I copied the following verses:

"Here Milton sung; what needs a greater spell

To lure thee, stranger, to these far-famed walls?

Though chroniclers of other ages tell

That princes oft have graced fair Ludlow's halls,

Their honors glide along oblivion's stream,

And o'er the wreck a tide of ruin drives;

Faint and more faint the rays of glory beam

That gild their course—the bard alone survives.

And, when the rude, unceasing shocks of Time

In one vast heap shall whelm this lofty pile,

Still shall his genius, towering and sublime,

Triumphant o'er the spoils of grandeur smile;

Still in these haunts, true to a nation's tongue,

Echo shall love to dwell, and say, Here, Milton sung."

I lingered long in the room pointed out to me as the one in which Milton wrote his "Comus." The castle was not only visited by the author of "Paradise Lost," but here, amidst the noise and bustle of civil dissensions,