Page:The Complete Poetical Works of John Milton.djvu/92

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��POEMS WRITTEN AT HORTON

��Comus. O foolishness of men ! that lend their ears

To those budge doctors of the Stoic fur,

And fetch their precepts from the Cynic tub,

Praising the lean and sallow Abstinence !

Wherefore did Nature pour her bounties forth 710

With such a full and unwithdrawing hand,

Covering the earth with odours, fruits, and flocks,

Thronging the seas with spawn innumer- able,

But all to please and sate the curious taste?

And set to work millions of spinning worms,

That in their green shops weave the smooth- haired silk,

To deck her sons; and, that no corner might

Be vacant of her plenty, in her own loins

She hutched the all-worshiped ore and pre- cious gems,

To store her children with. If all the world 720

Should, in a pet of temperance, feed on pulse,

Drink the clear stream, and nothing wear but frieze,

The All-giver would be unthanked, would be unpraised,

Not half his riches known, and yet de- spised ;

And we should serve him as a grudging master,

As a penurious niggard of his wealth,

And live like Nature's bastards, not her sons,

Who would be quite surcharged with her own weight,

And strangled with her waste fertility:

The earth cumbered, and the winged air darked with plumes ; 730

The herds would over-multitude their lords ;

The sea o'erfraught would swell, and the unsought diamonds

Would so emblaze the forehead of the Deep,

And so bestud with stars, that they below

Would grow inured to light, and come at last

To gaze upon the Sun with shameless brows.

List, Lady; be not coy, and be not cozened

With that same vaunted name, Virginity.

��Beauty is Nature's coin; must not be

hoarded,

But must be current; and the good thereof Consists in mutual and partaken bliss, 741 Unsavoury in the injoyment of itself. If you let slip time, like a neglected rose It withers on the stalk with languished

head.

Beauty is Nature's brag, and must be shown In courts, at feasts, and high solemnities, Where most may wonder at the workman- ship.

It is for homely features to keep home ; They had their name thence: coarse com- plexions

And cheeks of sorry grain will serve to

ply 750

The sampler, and to tease the huswife's

wool.

What need a vermeil-tinctured lip for that, Love-darting eyes, or tresses like the

Morn ?

There was another meaning in these gifts; Think what, and be advised; you are but

young yet.

Lady. I had not thought to have un- locked my lips

In this unhallowed air, but that this Jug- gler Would think to charm my judgment, as

mine eyes, Obtruding false rules pranked in reason's

garb.

I hate when Vice can bolt her arguments And Virtue has no tongue to check her pride. -61

Impostor ! do not charge most innocent

Nature,

As if she would her children should be riot- ous

With her abundance. She, good Cateress, Means her provision only to the good, That live according to her sober laws, And holy dictate of spare Temperance. If every just man that now pines with

want

Had but a moderate and beseeming share Of that which lewdlj'-pampered Luxury Now heaps upon some few with vast ex- cess, 77* Nature's full blessings would be well-dis- pensed

In unsuperfluous even proportion, And she no whit encumbered with her store ;

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