Page:The Complete Poetical Works of John Milton.djvu/55

 AT A VACATION EXERCISE IN THE COLLEGE

��VII

Wert them some Star, which from the ru- ined roof

Of shaked Olympus by mischance didst fall;

Which careful Jove in nature's true behoof

Took up, and in fit place did reinstall ?

Or did of late Earth s sons besiege the wall Of sheeny Heaven, and thou some God- dess fled

Amongst us here below to hide thy nectared head?

��Or wert thou that just Maid who once be- fore 50

Forsook the hated earth, oh ! tell me sooth,

And earnest again to visit us once more ?

Or wert thou [Mercy], that sweet smiling Youth ?

Or that crowned Matron, sage white-robed

Truth ? Or any other of that heavenly brood

Let down in cloudy throne to do the world some good ?

IX

Or wert thou of the golden-winged host, Who, having clad thyself in human weed, To earth from thy prefixed seat didst post, And after short abode fly back with speed, As if to shew what creatures Heaven doth breed; 61

Thereby to set the hearts of men on fire To scorn the sordid world, and unto Hea- ven aspire ?

��But oh ! why didst thou not stay here be- low

To bless us with thy heaven-loved inno- cence,

To slake his wrath whom sin hath made our foe,

To turn swift-rushing black perdition hence,

Or drive away the slaughtering pestilence, To stand 'twixt us and our deserved smart ?

But thou canst best perform that office where thou art. 70

XI

Then thou, the mother of so sweet a child, Her false-imagined loss cease to lament,

��And wisely learn to curb thy sorrows wild; Think what a present thou to God hast

sent, And render him with patience what he

lent:

This if thou do, he will an offspring give That till the world's last end shall make

thy name to live.

��AT A VACATION EXERCISE IN THE COLLEGE, PART LATIN, PART ENGLISH

(1628)

Light is thrown upon this curious fragment by one of the seven Prolusiones Oratorice, or academic speeches, -which Milton carefully preserved from his undergraduate days, and published, along with his Latin Familiar Epis- tles, in the last year of his life. The prolusis, of which these verses are a fragment, was pre- pared for one of those odd festivals, survivals of mediaeval university life, in which the students of Cambridge managed to unite a half -serious, half-burlesque display of learning with fun of a more boisterous kind. This particular fes- tival fell at the end of the Easter term and beginning of the Long Vacation, in July, 1628. Milton, then nearing the end of his undergrad- uate life, was chosen by the students of Christ's to be the " Father " or leader of the ceremo- nies, with a number of assistants or "sons" under him to help carry out the exercise which he should plan. The first part of this exer- cise consisted of a discourse, conceived in a heavy vein of serio-comedy, on the theme : " That occasional indulgence in sportive exer- cises is not inconsistent with philosophic stud- ies." The second part consisted of a burlesque address, delivered in the person of the " Fa- ther " to his sons. Both these were in Latin. Contrary to the usual custom, Milton, at this point in the exercises, abandoned Latin for the vulgar tongue. He excused himself for the unusual liberty by pronouncing the invocation to his native language, which makes up the first part of the preserved fragment. Realiz- ing, however, that this is a digression, he sooi* checks himself and turns to the business in hand ; i. e., the introduction to the audience of his sons, each of whom was to deliver a speech dramatically appropriate to the char- acter assigned him. The characters imper- sonated exemplify the quaint dress of pedan- try in which college fun was wont in Milton's day to be clothed. Milton himself, as Father, represented Ens, or the Absolute Being, of

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