312. ~Dingle ... bushy dell ... bosky bourn~. 'Dingle' = dimble (see Ben
Jonson's _Sad Shepherd_) = dimple = a little dip or depression; hence a
narrow valley. 'Dell' = dale, literally a cleft; hence a valley, not so
deep as a dingle. 'Bosky bourn,' a stream whose banks are bushy or
thickly grown with bushes. 'Bourn,' a boundary, is a distinct word
etymologically, but the phrase "from side to side," as used by Comus,
might well imply that the valley as well as the stream is here referred
to. 'Bosky,' bushy. The noun 'boscage' = jungle or _bush_ (M.E. _busch_,
_bush_, _bush_). 'See Tennyson's _Dream of F. W._ 243, "the sombre
_boscage_ of the wood."
315. ~stray attendance~ = strayed attendants; abstract for concrete, as in
line 274. Comp. _Par. Lost_, x. 80, "_Attendance_ none shall need, nor
train"; xii. 132, "Of herds, and flocks, and numerous _servitude_" (=
servants).
316. ~shroud~, etc. Milton first wrote "within these shroudie limits": see
note, l. 147.
317. ~low-roosted lark~, _i.e._ the lark that has roosted on the ground.
This is certainly Milton's meaning, as he refers to the bird as rising
from its "thatched pallet" = its nest, which is built on the ground.
'Roost' has, however, no radical connection with _rest_, but denotes a
perch for fowls, and Keightley's remark that Milton is guilty of
supposing the lark to sleep, like a hen, upon a perch or roost, may
therefore be noticed. But the poets' meaning is obvious. Prof. Masson
takes 'thatched' as referring to the texture of the nest or to the
corn-stalks or rushes over it.