JOHN MILTON 1608–1674

It was the winter wild While the heaven-born Child All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies; Nature in awe to Him Had doffed her gaudy trim, With her great Master so to sympathise: It was no season then for her To wanton with the sun, her lusty paramour.

Only with speeches fair She woos the gentle air To hide her guilty front with innocent snow; And on her naked shame, Pollute with sinful blame, The saintly veil of maiden white to throw; Confounded, that her Maker’s eyes Should look so near upon her foul deformities.

But He, her fears to cease, Sent down the meek-eyed Peace; She, crowned with olive green, came softly sliding Down through the turning sphere, His ready harbinger, With turtle wing the amorous clouds dividing; And waving wide her myrtle wand, She strikes a universal peace through sea and land.

No war, or battle’s sound Was heard the world around: The idle spear and shield were high uphung; The hooked chariot stood Unstained with hostile blood; The trumpet spake not to the armed throng; And kings sat still with awful eye, As if they surely knew their sovran Lord was by.

But peaceful was the night Wherein the Prince of Light His reign of peace upon the earth began: The winds, with wonder whist, Smoothly the waters kist, Whispering new joys to the mild ocean, Who now hath quite forgot to rave, While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmed wave.

The stars, with deep amaze, Stand fixed in steadfast gaze, Bending one way their precious influence; And will not take their flight For all the morning light, Or Lucifer that often warned them thence; But in their glimmering orbs did glow, Until their Lord Himself bespake, and bid them go.

And though the shady gloom Had given day her room, The sun himself withheld his wonted speed, And hid his head for shame, As his inferior flame The new-enlightened world no more should need; He saw a greater Sun appear Than his bright throne or burning axletree could bear.

The shepherds on the lawn, Or ere the point of dawn, Sat simply chatting in a rustic row; Full little thought they than That the mighty Pan Was kindly come to live with them below; Perhaps their loves, or else their sheep, Was all that did their silly thoughts so busy keep.

When such music sweet Their hearts and ears did greet As never was by mortal fingers strook— Divinely-warbled voice Answering the stringed noise, As all their souls in blissful rapture took; The air, such pleasure loth to lose, With thousand echoes still prolongs each heavenly close.

Nature, that heard such sound Beneath the hollow round Of Cynthia’s seat the airy region thrilling, Now was almost won To think her part was done, And that her reign had here its last fulfilling; She knew such harmony alone Could hold all Heaven and Earth in happier union.

At last surrounds their sight A globe of circular light, That with long beams the shamefaced night arrayed; The helmed Cherubim And sworded Seraphim Are seen in glittering ranks with wings displayed, Harping in loud and solemn quire, With unexpressive notes, to Heaven’s new-born Heir.

Such music (as ’tis said) Before was never made But when of old the Sons of Morning sung, While the Creator great His constellations set, And the well-balanced world on hinges hung; And cast the dark foundations deep, And bid the weltering waves their oozy channel keep.

Ring out, ye crystal spheres! Once bless our human ears, If ye have power to touch our senses so; And let your silver chime Move in melodious time; And let the bass of heaven’s deep organ blow; And with your ninefold harmony Make up full consort to the angelic symphony.

For if such holy song Enwrap our fancy long, Time will run back and fetch the age of gold; And speckled Vanity Will sicken soon and die, And leprous Sin will melt from earthly mould; And Hell itself will pass away, And leave her dolorous mansions to the peering day.

Yea, Truth and Justice then Will down return to men, Orbed in a rainbow; and, like glories wearing, Mercy will sit between Throned in celestial sheen, With radiant feet the tissued clouds down steering; And Heaven, as at some festival, Will open wide the gates of her high palace-hall.

But wisest Fate says No; This must not yet be so; The Babe yet lies in smiling infancy That on the bitter cross Must redeem our loss; So both Himself and us to glorify: Yet first, to those ychained in sleep, The wakeful trump of doom must thunder through the deep,

With such a horrid clang As on Mount Sinai rang, While the red fire and smouldering clouds out-brake: The aged Earth aghast With terror of that blast Shall from the surface to the centre shake, When, at the world’s last session, The dreadful Judge in middle air shall spread His throne.

And then at last our bliss Full and perfect is, But now begins; for from this happy day The old Dragon under ground, In straiter limits bound, Not half so far casts his usurped sway; And, wroth to see his kingdom fail, Swinges the scaly horror of his folded tail.

The Oracles are dumb; No voice or hideous hum Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving. Apollo from his shrine Can no more divine, With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving: No nightly trance or breathed spell Inspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell.

The lonely mountains o’er And the resounding shore A voice of weeping heard and loud lament; From haunted spring and dale Edged with poplar pale, The parting Genius is with sighing sent; With flower-inwoven tresses torn The Nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn.

In consecrated earth And on the holy hearth The Lars and Lemures moan with midnight plaint; In urns, and altars round, A drear and dying sound Affrights the Flamens at their service quaint; And the chill marble seems to sweat, While each peculiar Power forgoes his wonted seat.

Peor and Baalim Forsake their temples dim, With that twice-battered god of Palestine; And mooned Ashtaroth, Heaven’s queen and mother both, Now sits not girt with tapers’ holy shine; The Lybic Hammon shrinks his horn: In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz mourn.

And sullen Moloch, fled, Hath left in shadows dread His burning idol all of blackest hue; In vain with cymbals’ ring They call the grisly king, In dismal dance about the furnace blue; The brutish gods of Nile as fast, Isis, and Orus, and the dog Anubis, haste.

Nor is Osiris seen In Memphian grove or green, Trampling the unshowered grass with lowings loud: Nor can he be at rest Within his sacred chest; Nought but profoundest Hell can be his shroud; In vain with timbrelled anthems dark The sable-stoled sorcerers bear his worshipped ark.

He feels from Juda’s land The dreaded Infant’s hand; The rays of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyn; Nor all the gods beside Longer dare abide, Not Typhon huge ending in snaky twine: Our Babe, to show His Godhead true, Can in His swaddling bands control the damned crew.

So, when the sun in bed, Curtained with cloudy red, Pillows his chin upon an orient wave, The flocking shadows pale Troop to the infernal jail, Each fettered ghost slips to his several grave; And the yellow-skirted fays Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-loved maze.

But see! the Virgin blest Hath laid her Babe to rest; Time is, our tedious song should here have ending: Heaven’s youngest-teemed star Hath fixed her polished car, Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending: And all about the courtly stable Bright-harnessed Angels sit in order serviceable.

Hence, loathed Melancholy, Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born In Stygian cave forlorn, ’Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy! Find out some uncouth cell Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings And the night-raven sings; There under ebon shades, and low-browed rocks As ragged as thy locks, In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell.

But come, thou goddess fair and free, In heaven yclept Euphrosyne, And by men, heart-easing Mirth, Whom lovely Venus at a birth With two sister Graces more To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore; Or whether (as some sager sing) The frolic wind that breathes the spring, Zephyr, with Aurora playing, As he met her once a-Maying— There on beds of violets blue And fresh-blown roses washed in dew Filled her with thee, a daughter fair, So buxom, blithe, and debonair. Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee Jest, and youthful jollity, Quips, and cranks, and wanton wiles, Nods, and becks, and wreathed smiles, Such as hang on Hebe’s cheek, And love to live in dimple sleek; Sport that wrinkled Care derides, And Laughter holding both his sides:— Come, and trip it as you go On the light fantastic toe; And in thy right hand lead with thee The mountain-nymph, sweet Liberty; And if I give thee honour due, Mirth, admit me of thy crew, To live with her, and live with thee In unreproved pleasures free; To hear the lark begin his flight And singing startle the dull night From his watch-tower in the skies, Till the dappled dawn doth rise; Then to come, in spite of sorrow, And at my window bid good-morrow Through the sweetbriar, or the vine, Or the twisted eglantine: While the cock with lively din Scatters the rear of darkness thin, And to the stack, or the barn-door, Stoutly struts his dames before: Oft listening how the hounds and horn Cheerly rouse the slumbering morn, From the side of some hoar hill, Through the high wood echoing shrill: Sometime walking, not unseen, By hedge-row elms, on hillocks green, Right against the eastern gate Where the great Sun begins his state Robed in flames and amber light, The clouds in thousand liveries dight; While the ploughman, near at hand, Whistles o’er the furrowed land, And the milkmaid singeth blithe, And the mower whets his scythe, And every shepherd tells his tale Under the hawthorn in the dale. Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures Whilst the landscape round it measures; Russet lawns, and fallows gray, Where the nibbling flocks do stray; Mountains, on whose barren breast The labouring clouds do often rest; Meadows trim with daisies pied, Shallow brooks, and rivers wide; Towers and battlements it sees Bosomed high in tufted trees, Where perhaps some Beauty lies, The cynosure of neighbouring eyes. Hard by, a cottage chimney smokes From betwixt two aged oaks, Where Corydon and Thyrsis, met, Are at their savoury dinner set Of herbs, and other country messes, Which the neat-handed Phillis dresses; And then in haste her bower she leaves, With Thestylis to bind the sheaves; Or, if the earlier season lead, To the tanned haycock in the mead. Sometimes with secure delight The upland hamlets will invite, When the merry bells ring round, And the jocund rebecks sound To many a youth and many a maid, Dancing in the chequered shade; And young and old come forth to play On a sunshine holiday, Till the live-long day-light fail: Then to the spicy nut-brown ale, With stories told of many a feat, How Faery Mab the junkets eat:— She was pinched and pulled, she said; And he by Friar’s lantern led; Tells how the grudging Goblin sweat To earn his cream-bowl duly set, When in one night, ere glimpse of morn, His shadowy flail hath threshed the corn That ten day-labourers could not end; Then lies him down the lubber fiend, And, stretched out all the chimney’s length, Basks at the fire his hairy strength; And crop-full out of doors he flings, Ere the first cock his matin rings. Thus done the tales, to bed they creep, By whispering winds soon lulled asleep. Towered cities please us then And the busy hum of men, Where throngs of knights and barons bold, In weeds of peace, high triumphs hold, 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. 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 Lydian 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, 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. These delights if thou canst give, Mirth, with thee I mean to live.

Hence, vain deluding Joys, The brood of Folly without father bred! How little you bestead Or fill the fixed mind with all your toys! Dwell in some idle brain, And fancies fond with gaudy shapes possess As thick and numberless As the gay motes that people the sunbeams, Or likest hovering dreams, The fickle pensioners of Morpheus’ train.

But hail, thou goddess sage and holy, 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 The sea-nymphs, and their powers offended: 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, While yet there was no fear of Jove. 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 Cipres 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: There, held in holy passion still, 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:— 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. Sweet bird, that shunn’st the noise of folly, Most musical, most melancholy! Thee, chauntress, 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, Like one that had been led astray Through the heaven’s wide pathless way, And oft, as if her head she bowed, Stooping through a fleecy cloud. Oft on a plat of rising ground I hear the far-off curfew sound Over some wide-watered shore, Swinging slow with sullen roar; Or, if the air will not permit, Some still, removed place will fit, Where glowing embers through the room Teach light to counterfeit a gloom; Far from all resort of mirth, Save the cricket on the hearth, Or the bellman’s drowsy charm To bless the doors from nightly harm. Or let my lamp at midnight hour Be seen in some high lonely tower, Where I may oft out-watch the Bear With thrice-great Hermes, or unsphere The spirit of Plato, to unfold What worlds or what vast regions hold The immortal mind, that hath forsook Her mansion in this fleshly nook: And of those demons that are found In fire, air, flood, or under ground, Whose power hath a true consent With planet, or with element. Sometime let gorgeous Tragedy In sceptered pall come sweeping by, Presenting Thebes, or Pelops’ line, Or the tale of Troy divine; Or what (though rare) of later age Ennobled hath the buskined stage. But, O sad Virgin, that thy power Might raise Musaeus from his bower, Or bid the soul of Orpheus sing Such notes as, warbled to the string, Drew iron tears down Pluto’s cheek And made Hell grant what Love did seek! Or call up him that left half-told The story of Cambuscan bold, Of Camball, and of Algarsife, And who had Canace to wife That owned the virtuous ring and glass; And of the wondrous horse of brass On which the Tartar king did ride: And if aught else great bards beside In sage and solemn tunes have sung Of tourneys and of trophies hung, Of forests and enchantments drear, Where more is meant than meets the ear. Thus, Night, oft see me in thy pale career, Till civil-suited Morn appear, Not tricked and frounced as she was wont With the Attic Boy to hunt, But kercheft in a comely cloud While rocking winds are piping loud, Or ushered with a shower still, When the gust hath blown his fill, Ending on the rustling leaves With minute drops from off the eaves. And when the sun begins to fling His flaring beams, me, goddess, bring To arched walks of twilight groves, And shadows brown, that Sylvan loves, Of pine, or monumental oak, Where the rude axe, with heaved stroke, Was never heard the nymphs to daunt, Or fright them from their hallowed haunt. There in close covert by some brook, Where no profaner eye may look, Hide me from day’s garish eye, While the bee with honeyed thigh, That at her flowery work doth sing, And the waters murmuring, With such consort as they keep Entice the dewy-feathered Sleep; And let some strange mysterious dream Wave at his wings in airy stream Of lively portraiture displayed, Softly on my eyelids laid: And, as I wake, sweet music breathe Above, about, or underneath, Sent by some Spirit to mortals good, Or the unseen Genius of the wood. But let my due feet never fail To walk the studious cloister’s pale, And love the high-embowed roof, With antique pillars massy proof, And storied windows richly dight Casting a dim religious light. There let the pealing organ blow To the full-voiced quire below In service high and anthems clear, As may with sweetness, through mine ear, Dissolve me into ecstasies, And bring all Heaven before mine eyes. And may at last my weary age Find out the peaceful hermitage, The hairy gown and mossy cell Where I may sit and rightly spell Of every star that heaven doth shew, And every herb that sips the dew; Till old experience do attain To something like prophetic strain. These pleasures, Melancholy, give, And I with thee will choose to live.

Yet once more, O ye laurels, and once more Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere, I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude, And with forced fingers rude Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year. Bitter constraint and sad occasion dear Compels me to disturb your season due: For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime, Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer. Who would not sing for Lycidas? he knew Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme. He must not float upon his watery bier Unwept, and welter to the parching wind, Without the meed of some melodious tear.

Begin, then, Sisters of the sacred well That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring; Begin, and somewhat loudly sweep the string. Hence withdenial vain and coy excuse: So may some gentle Muse With lucky words favour my destined urn; And, as he passes, turn And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud.

For we were nursed upon the self-same hill, Fed the same flock by fountain, shade, and rill: Together both, ere the high lawns appeared Under the opening eyelids of the Morn, We drove a-field, and both together heard What time the grey-fly winds her sultry horn, Battening our nocks with the fresh dews of night, Oft till the star that rose at evening bright Toward heaven’s descent had sloped his westering wheel. Meanwhile the rural ditties were not mute, Tempered to the oaten flute, Rough Satyrs danced, and Fauns with cloven heel From the glad sound would not be absent long; And old Damoetas loved to hear our song.

But, oh! the heavy change, now thou art gone, Now thou art gone and never must return! Thee, Shepherd, thee the woods and desert caves With wild thyme and the gadding vine o’ergrown, And all their echoes, mourn: The willows and the hazel copses green Shall now no more be seen Fanning their joyous leaves to thy soft lays. As killing as the canker to the rose, Or taint-worm to the weanling herds that graze, Or frost to flowers, that their gay wardrobe wear When first the white-thorn blows; Such, Lycidas, thy loss to shepherd’s ear.

Where were ye, Nymphs, when the remorseless deep Closed o’er the head of your loved Lycidas? For neither were ye playing on the steep Where your old bards, the famous Druids, lie, Nor on the shaggy top of Mona high, Nor yet where Deva spreads her wizard stream: Ay me! I fondly dream— Had ye been there . . . For what could that have done? What could the Muse herself that Orpheus bore, The Muse herself, for her enchanting son, Whom universal nature did lament, When by the rout that made the hideous roar His gory visage down the stream was sent, Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore?

Alas! what boots it with incessant care To tend the homely, slighted, shepherd’s trade, And strictly meditate the thankless Muse? Were it not better done, as others use, To sport with Amaryllis in the shade, Or with the tangles of Neaera’s hair? Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise (That last infirmity of noble mind) To scorn delights, and live laborious days; But the fair guerdon when we hope to find, And think to burst out into sudden blaze, Comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears, And slits the thin-spun life. ‘But not the praise,’ Phoebus replied, and touched my trembling ears; ‘Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil, Nor in the glistering foil Set off to the world, nor in broad rumour lies: But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes And perfect witness of all-judging Jove; As he pronounces lastly on each deed, Of so much fame in heaven expect thy meed.’

O fountain Arethuse, and thou honoured flood, Smooth-sliding Mincius, crowned with vocal reeds, That strain I heard was of a higher mood. But now my oat proceeds, And listens to the herald of the sea That came in Neptune’s plea. He asked the waves, and asked the felon winds, What hard mishap hath doomed this gentle swain? And questioned every gust of rugged wings That blows from off each beaked promontory. They knew not of his story; And sage Hippotades their answer brings, That not a blast was from his dungeon strayed; The air was calm, and on the level brine Sleek Panope with all her sisters played. It was that fatal and perfidious bark Built in the eclipse, and rigged with curses dark, That sunk so low that sacred head of thine.

Next Camus, reverend sire, went footing slow, His mantle hairy, and his bonnet sedge Inwrought with figures dim, and on the edge Like to that sanguine flower inscribed with woe. ‘Ah! who hath reft,’ quoth he, ‘my dearest pledge?’ Last came, and last did go The Pilot of the Galilean lake; Two massy keys he bore of metals twain (The golden opes, the iron shuts amain); He shook his mitred locks, and stern bespake: ‘How well could I have spared for thee, young swain, Enow of such, as for their bellies’ sake Creep and intrude and climb into the fold! Of other care they little reckoning make Than how to scramble at the shearers’ feast, And shove away the worthy bidden guest. Blind mouths! that scarce themselves know how to hold A sheep-hook, or have learned aught else the least That to the faithful herdman’s art belongs! What recks it them? What need they? They are sped; And when they list, their lean and flashy songs Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw; The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed, But, swoln with wind and the rank mist they draw, Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread: Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw Daily devours apace, and nothing said: But that two-handed engine at the door Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more.’

Return, Alpheus; the dread voice is past That shrunk thy streams; return, Sicilian Muse, And call the vales, and bid them hither cast Their bells and flowerets of a thousand hues. Ye valleys low, where the mild whispers use Of shades, and wanton winds, and gushing brooks On whose fresh lap the swart star sparely looks; Throw hither all your quaint enamelled eyes That on the green turf suck the honeyed showers And purple all the ground with vernal flowers. Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies, The tufted crow-toe, and pale jessamine, The white pink, and the pansy freaked with jet, The glowing violet, The musk-rose, and the well-attired woodbine, With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head, And every flower that sad embroidery wears: Bid amaranthus all his beauty shed, And daffadillies fill their cups with tears, To strew the laureate hearse where Lycid lies. For so to interpose a little ease, Let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise:— Ay me! whilst thee the shores and sounding seas Wash far away, where’er thy bones are hurled, Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides, Where thou perhaps, under the whelming tide, Visitest the bottom of the monstrous world; Or whether thou, to our moist vows denied, Sleep’st by the fable of Bellerus old, Where the great Vision of the guarded mount Looks toward Namancos and Bayona’s hold; Look homeward, Angel, now, and melt with ruth: And, O ye dolphins, waft the hapless youth!

Weep no more, woeful shepherds, weep no more, For Lycidas, your sorrow, is not dead, Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor: So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed, And yet anon repairs his drooping head And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore Flames in the forehead of the morning sky: So Lycidas sunk low, but mounted high Through the dear might of Him that walked the waves; Where, other groves and other streams along, With nectar pure his oozy locks he laves, And hears the unexpressive nuptial song In the blest kingdoms meek of joy and love. There entertain him all the Saints above, In solemn troops, and sweet societies, That sing, and singing in their glory move, And wipe the tears for ever from his eyes. Now, Lycidas, the shepherds weep no more; Henceforth thou art the Genius of the shore, In thy large recompense, and shalt be good To all that wander in that perilous flood.

Thus sang the uncouth swain to the oaks and rills, While the still morn went out with sandals grey; He touched the tender stops of various quills, With eager thought warbling his Doric lay: And now the sun had stretched out all the hills, And now was dropt into the western bay: At last he rose, and twitched his mantle blue: To-morrow to fresh woods, and pastures new.

When I consider how my light is spent Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide, And that one talent which is death to hide Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent To serve therewith my Maker, and present My true account, lest He returning chide,— Doth God exact day-labour, light denied? I fondly ask:—But Patience, to prevent That murmur, soon replies: God doth not need Either man’s work, or His own gifts; who best Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best: His state Is kingly; thousands at His bidding speed And post o’er land and ocean without rest: They also serve who only stand and wait.

Methought I saw my late espoused saint Brought to me like Alkestis from the grave, Whom Jove’s great son to her glad husband gave, Rescued from death by force, though pale and faint. Mine, as whom washed from spot of child-bed taint Purification in the Old Law did save, And such as yet once more I trust to have Full sight of her in Heaven without restraint, Came vested all in white, pure as her mind; Her face was veiled, yet to my fancied sight Love, sweetness, goodness in her person shined So clear as in no face with more delight. But oh! as to embrace me she inclined, I waked, she fled, and day brought back my night.

What needs my Shakespeare, for his honoured bones, The labour of an age in piled stones? Or that his hallowed reliques should be hid Under a star-y-pointing pyramid? Dear son of memory, great heir of fame, What need’st thou such weak witness of thy name? Thou in our wonder and astonishment Hast built thyself a live-long monument. For whilst, to shame of slow-endeavouring art Thy easy numbers flow, and that each heart Hath from the leaves of thy unvalued book Those Delphic lines with deep impression took, Then thou, our fancy of itself bereaving, Dost make us marble with too much conceiving; And so sepulchered in such pomp dost lie, That kings for such a tomb would wish to die.

Now the bright morning star, day’s harbinger, Comes dancing from the East, and leads with her The flowery May, who from her green lap throws The yellow cowslip and the pale primrose. Hail, bounteous May, that dost inspire Mirth and youth and young desire! Woods and groves are of thy dressing, Hill and dale doth boast thy blessing. Thus we salute thee with our early song, And welcome thee and wish thee long.

Sabrina fair! Listen, where thou art sitting, Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave, In twisted braids of lilies knitting The loose train of thine amber-dripping hair, Listen for dear honour’s sake, Goddess of the silver lake, Listen and save! Listen, and appear to us, In name of great Oceanus, By the earth-shaking Neptune’s mace, And Tethys’ grave majestic pace; By hoary Nereus’ wrinkled look, And the Carpathian wizard’s hook; By scaly Triton’s winding shell, And old soothsaying Glaucus’ spell; By Leucothea’s lovely hands, And her son that rules the strands; By Thetis’ tinsel-slippered feet, And the songs of sirens sweet; By dead Parthenope’s dear tomb, And fair Ligea’s golden comb, Wherewith she sits on diamond rocks Sleeking her soft alluring locks; By all the nymphs that nightly dance Upon thy streams with wily glance; Rise, rise, and heave thy rosy head From thy coral-paven bed, And bridle in thy headlong wave, Till thou our summons answered have. Listen and save!

Sweet Echo, sweetest Nymph, that liv’st unseen Within thine airy shell By slow Meander’s margent green, And in the violet-embroidered vale, Where the love-lorn nightingale Nightly to thee her sad song mourneth well; Canst thou not tell me of a single pair That likest thy Narcissus are? O, if thou have Hid them in some flowery cave, Tell me but where, Sweet Queen of Parley, daughter of the Sphere! So mayest thou be translated to the skies, And give resounding grace to all Heaven’s harmonies.

To the ocean now I fly, And those happy climes that lie Where day never shuts his eye, Up in the broad fields of the sky. There I suck the liquid air, All amid the gardens fair Of Hesperus, and his daughters three That sing about the golden tree. Along the crisped shades and bowers Revels the spruce and jocund Spring; The Graces and the rosy-bosomed Hours Thither all their bounties bring. There eternal Summer dwells, And west winds with musky wing About the cedarn alleys fling Nard and cassia’s balmy smells. Iris there with humid bow Waters the odorous banks, that blow Flowers of more mingled hue Than her purpled scarf can show, And drenches with Elysian dew (List, mortals, if your ears be true) Beds of hyacinth and roses, Where young Adonis oft reposes, Waxing well of his deep wound In slumber soft, and on the ground Sadly sits the Assyrian queen. But far above, in spangled sheen, Celestial Cupid, her famed son, advanced, Holds his dear Psyche, sweet entranced, After her wandering labours long, Till free consent the gods among Make her his eternal bride, And from her fair unspotted side Two blissful twins are to be born, Youth and Joy; so Jove hath sworn.

But now my task is smoothly done: I can fly or I can run Quickly to the green earth’s end, Where the bowed welkin slow doth bend, And from thence can soar as soon To the corners of the moon. Mortals that would follow me, Love Virtue; she alone is free, She can teach ye how to climb Higher than the sphery chime; Or if feeble Virtue were, Heaven itself would stoop to her.