138. ~blabbing eastern scout~, _i.e._ the tale-telling spy that comes from
the East, viz. Morning.
139. ~nice~; hard to please, fastidious: "a finely chosen epithet,
expressing at once _curious_ and _squeamish_" (Hurd). It is used by
Comus in contempt: comp. ii. _Henry IV._ iv. 1, "Hence, therefore, thou
_nice_ crutch"; and see the index to the Globe _Shakespeare_. ~the Indian
steep~. In his _Elegia Tertia_ Milton represents the sun as the
"light-bringing king" whose home is on the shores of the Ganges (_i.e._
in the far East): comp. "the Indian mount," _Par. Lost_, i. 781, and
Tennyson's _In Memoriam_, xxvi., "ere yet the morn Breaks hither over
_Indian_ seas."
140. ~cabined loop-hole~: an allusion to the first glimpse of dawn, _i.e._
the peep of day. Comp. "Out of her window close she blushing peeps,"
said of the morning (P. Fletcher's _Eclogues_), as if the first rays of
the sun struggled through some small aperture. 'Cabined,' literally
'belonging to a cabin,' and therefore small.