Page:The Complete Poetical Works of John Milton.djvu/85

 COMUS

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��As the kind hospitable woods provide.

They left me then when the grey-hooded Even,

Like a sad Votarist in palmer's weed,

Rose from the hindmost wheels of Phoebus' wain. 190

But where they are, and why they came not back,

Is now the labour of my thoughts. 'Tis likeliest

They had ingaged their wandering steps too far;

And envious darkness, ere they could re- turn,

Had stole them from me. Else, O thiev- ish Night,

Why shouldst thou, but for some felonious end,

In thy dark lantern thus close up the stars

That Nature hung in heaven, and filled their lamps

With everlasting oil, to give due light

To the misled and lonely travailler ? 200

This is the place, as well as I may guess,

Whence even now the tumult of loud mirth

Was rife, and perfet in my listening ear;

Yet nought but single darkness do I find.

What might this be ? A thousand fanta- sies

Begin to throng into my memory,

Of calling shapes, and beckoning shadows dire,

And airy tongues that syllable men's names

On sands and shores and desert wilder- nesses.

These thoughts may startle well, but not astound 210

The virtuous mind, that ever walks at- tended

By a strong siding champion, Conscience.

welcome, pure-eyed Faith, white-handed

Hope, Thou hovering angel girt with golden

wings, And thou unblemished form of Chastity !

1 see ye visibly, and now believe

That He, the Supreme Good, to whom all

things ill

Are but as slavish officers of vengeance, Would send a glistering guardian, if need

were,

To keep my life and honour unassailed. . . . Was I deceived, or did a sable cloud 221

��Turn forth her silver lining on the night ? I did not err: there does a sable cloud Turn forth her silver lining on the night, And casts a gleam over this tufted grove. I cannot hallo to my brothers, but Such noise as I can make to be heard

farthest

I '11 venter; for my new-enlivened spirits Prompt me, and they perhaps are not far

off.

SONG

Sweet Echo, sweetest nymph, that liv'st unseen 230

Within thy airy shell By slow Meander's margent green, And in the violet-imbroidered vale

Where the love-lorn Nightingale Nightly to thee her sad song inourneth

well :

Canst thou not tell me of a gentle pair That likest thy Narcissus are ?

O if thou have Hid them in some flowery cave,

Tell me but where, 240

Sweet Queen of Parley, Daughter of the

Sphere !

So may'st thou be translated to the skies, And give resounding grace to all Heaven's harmonies !

Comus. Can any mortal mixture of

earth's mould

Breathe such divine inchanting ravishment ? Sure something holy lodges in that breast, And with these raptures moves the vocal air To testify his hidden residence. How sweetly did they float upon the wings Of silence, through the empty-vaulted night, 250

At every fall smoothing the raven down Of darkness till it smiled ! I have oft heard My mother Circe with the Sirens three, Amidst the flowery-kirtled Naiades, Culling their potent hearbs and baleful

drugs, Who, as they sung, would take the prisoned

soul,

And lap it in Elysium : Scylla wept, And chid her barking waves into attention, And fell Charybdis murmured soft ap- plause.

Yet they in pleasing slumber lulled the sense, 260

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