Page:The Complete Poetical Works of John Milton.djvu/371

 ELEGIES AND EPIGRAMS

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��Quisque novum amplexu comitetu cautuque

salutat, Hosque aliquis placido inisit ab ore

sonos: " Nate, veni, et patrii felix cape gaudia

regni ;

Semper abhinc duro, nate, labore vaca." Dixit, et aligera? tetigeruut nablia turmse; At mihi cum tenebris aurea pulsa quies; Flebam turbatos Cephaleia pellice somnos. Talia contiiigant somnia ssepe mihi !

��triumphal horu. Each angel saluted his new comrade with embrace and song; and from the placid lips of One came these words: "Come, son, enjoy the gladness of thy father's realm; rest henceforth from thy hard labors." As He spoke, the winged choirs touched their psalteries. But from me my golden rest fled with the darkness, and I was left weeping the dreams which had been snatched away. May the like come to me often again !

��ELEGIA QUARTA

Anno atatis 18

AD THOMAM JUNIUM, PR^ECEPTOREM SUUM, APUD MERCATORES ANGLICOS HAMBURG/E AGENTES PASTORIS MUNERE FUNGENTEM

ELEGY IV

To HIS TUTOR, THOMAS YOUNG, CHAPLAIN TO THE ENGLISH MERCHANTS AT

HAMBURG

��Thomas Young, a young Scotch divine who had come to England in the wake of King James, had been Milton's domestic tutor, and had probably continued in that capacity after the boy was sent to St. Paul's School. Two years before Milton left St. Paul's, Young ac- cepted a position abroad as minister of a Pro- testant church supported by the English mer- chants resident at Hamburg in Germany. The present verse-letter, written in 1627, some years after Young's departure, shows by its tone of tenderness and solicitude that, in spite of his dilatoriness in writing, Milton still cherished a sincere affection for his former tutor. He compares his love for Young to that of Alci- biades for Socrates, and plainly states his debt to him for initiation into the delights of classi- cal literature. Milton's references to the trou- bled state of Germany, and the danger to which Young is exposed, will be made clear by re- membering that in 1627 the Thirty Years' War had entered upon its second stage, with Tilly and Wallenstein at the head of the Imperialist forces, and Christian IV. of Denmark as cham- pion of the Protestant cause. When the pre-

CURRE per immensum subit6, mea littera,

pontum ;

I, pete Teutonicos laeve per sequor agros ; Segnes rumpe moras, et nil, precor, obstet

ennti, Et festinantis nil remoretur iter.

��sent epistle was written, the Imperialist army was reported in England to be on the point of laying siege to Hamburg. This circumstance serves to inflame Milton's indignation over the callousness of England, who had allowed one of her most righteous sons to be driven abroad for sustenance.

The prophecy with which the epistle closes, that Young would soon see his native shores again, was fulfilled in the same or the follow- ing year. He received a living at Stowmarket, Suffolk, and held it uninterruptedly until the close of his life in 1655. When the Long Par- liament met to inaugurate a new state of things in the church, Young came forward with the famous pamphlet against Bishop Hall and his defence of Episcopacy. This pamphlet was signed Smectymnuus, a name made up from the initials of Young and the four other ministers who had collaborated in the production; it was the first of the remarkable series of Smectym- nnan pamphlets to which Milton contributed. After Milton's break with the Presbyterians, and his embroilment in the divorce controversy, his intimacy with Young probably ceased.

Run through the great sea, my letter; go, over the smooth waters seek the shores of Germany. Tarry not; let nothing, I pray, stand in the way of your going; let nothing impair your haste. I myself will

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