Page:The Complete Poetical Works of John Milton.djvu/84

 POEMS WRITTEN AT HORTON

��Strict Age, and sour Severity,

With their grave saws, in slumber lie. 1 10

We, that are of purer fire,

Imitate the starry Quire,

Who, in their nightly watchful spheres,

Lead in swift round the months and

years. The sounds and seas, with all their finny

drove, Now to the Moon in wavering morrice

move;

And on the tawny sands and shelves Trip the pert Fairies and the dapper Elves. By dimpled brook and fountain-brim, The Wood-Nymphs, decked with daisies

trim, 120

Their merry wakes and pastimes keep: What hath night to do with sleep ? Night hath better sweets to prove; Venus now wakes, and wakeus Love. Come, let us our rites begin ; 'T is only daylight that makes sin, Which these dun shades will ne'er report. Hail, goddess of nocturnal sport, Dark-veiled Cotytto, to whom the secret

flame Of midnight torches burns ! mysterious

Dame, 130

That ne'er art called but when the dragon

womb Of Stygian darkness spets her thickest

gloom,

And makes one blot of all the air ! Stay thy cloudy ebon chair, Wherein thou ridest with Hecat', and be- friend

Us thy vowed priests, till utmost end Of all thy dues be done, and none left out Ere the blabbing eastern scout, The nice Morn on the Indian steep, From her cabined loop-hole peep, 140

And to the tell-tale Sun descry Our concealed solemnity. Come, knit hands, and beat the ground In a light fantastic round.

The Measure.

Break off, break off ! I feel the different

pace Of some chaste footing near about this

ground. Run to your shrouds within these brakes

and trees; Our number may affright. Some virgin

sure

��(For so I can distinguish by mine art) Benighted in these woods ! Now to my

charms, 150

And to my wily trains: I shall ere long Be well stocked with as fair a herd as

grazed

About my mother Circe. Thus I hurl My dazzling spells into the spongy air, Of power to cheat the eye with blear illu- sion, And give it false presentments, lest the

place

And my quaint habits breed astonishment, And put the Damsel to suspicious flight; Which must not be, for that 's against my

course.

I, under fair pretence of friendly ends, 160 And well-placed words of glozing courtesy, Baited with reasons not implausible, Wind me into the easy-hearted man, And hug him into snares. When once her

eye

Hath met the virtue of this magic dust I shall appear some harmless villager, Whom thrift keeps up about his country

gear.

But here she comes; I fairly step aside, And hearken, if I may her business hear.

The LADY enters.

Lady. This way the noise was, if mine

ear be true, 170

My best guide now. Methought it was the

sound

Of riot and ill-managed merriment, Such as the jocond flute or gamesome pipe Stirs up among the loose unlettered hinds, When, for their teeming flocks and granges

full, In wanton dance they praise the bounteous

Pan, And thank the gods amiss. I should be

loth

To meet the rudeness and swilled insolence Of such late wassailers ; yet, oh ! where

else

Shall I inform my unacquainted feet 180 In the blind mazes of this tangled wood ? My brothers, when they saw me wearied

out

With this long way, resolving here to lodge Under the spreading favour of these pines, Stepped, as they said, to the next thicket- side To bring me berries, or such cooling fruit

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