Page:The Complete Poetical Works of John Milton.djvu/70

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��POEMS WRITTEN AT HORTON

��In weeds of peace, high triumphs hold, 120

With store of Ladies, whose bright eyes

Rain influence, and judge the prize

Of wit or arms, while both contend

To win her grace whom all commend.

There let Hymen oft appear

In saffron robe, with taper clear,

And pomp, and feast, and revelry,

With mask and antique pageantry;

Such sights as youthful Poets dream

On summer eves by haunted stream. 130

Then to the well-trod stage anon,

If Jonson's learned sock be on,

Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child,

Warble his native wood-notes wild.

And ever, against eating cares,

Lap me in soft Lydiau airs,

Married to immortal verse,

Such as the meeting soul may pierce,

In notes with many a winding bout

Of linked sweetness long drawn out 140

With wanton heed and giddy cunning,

The melting voice through mazes running,

Untwisting all the chains that tie

The hidden soul of harmony;

That Orpheus' self may heave his head

From golden slumber on a bed

Of heaped Elysian flowers, and hear

Such strains as would have won the ear

Of Pluto to have quite set free

His half-regained Eurydice. 150

These delights if thou canst give,

Mirth, with thee I mean to live.

��IL PENSEROSO

(1633)

HENCE, vain deluding Joys,

The brood of Folly without father bred ! How little you bested,

Or fill the fixed mind with all your toys ! Dwell in some idle brain,

And fancies fond with gaudy shapes pos- sess, 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 Goddess sage and holy ! n Hail, divinest Melancholy ! Whose saintly visage is too bright To hit the sense of human sight,

��And therefore to our weaker view O'erlaid with black, staid Wisdom's hue; Black, but such as in esteem Prince Memnon's sister might beseem, Or that starred Ethiop Queen that strove To set her beauty's praise above 20

The Sea-Nymphs, and their powers of- fended.

Yet thou art higher far descended: Thee bright-haired Vesta long of yore To solitary Saturn bore; His daughter she; in Saturn's reign Such mixture was not held a stain. Oft in glimmering bowers and glades He met her, and in secret shades Of woody Ida's inmost grove, Whilst yet there was no fear of Jove. 30 Come, pensive Nun, devout and pure,^^ Sober, steadfast, and demure, All in a robe of darkest grain, Flowing with majestic train, And sable stole of cypress lawn Over thy decent shoulders drawn. Come; but keep thy wonted state, With even step, and musing gait, And looks commercing with the skies, Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes,^ 4c There, held in holy passion stilly Forget thyself to marble, till With a sad leaden downward cast Thou fix them on the earth as fast. And join with thee calm Peace and Quiet, Spare Fast, that oft with gods doth diet, And hears the Muses in a ring Aye round about Jove's altar sing; And add to these retired Leisure, That in trim gardens takes his pleasure ; 50 But, first and chiefest, with thee bring Him that yon soars on golden wing, Guiding the fiery- wheeled throne, The Cherub Contemplation; And the mute Silence hist along, 'Less Philomel will deign a song, In her sweetest saddest plight, Smoothing the rugged brow of Night, While Cynthia checks her dragon yoke Gently o'er the accustomed oak. 60

Sweet bird, that shunn'st the noise of folly Most musical, most melancholy ! Thee, C haunt re ss, oft the woods among I woo, to hear thy even-song; And, missing thee, I walk unseen On the dry smooth-shaven green, To behold the wandering Moon, Riding near her highest noon,

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