Sphere-born harmonious sisters, Voice and Verse,
Wed your divine sounds, and mixed power employ,
Dead things with inbreathed sense able to pierce;
And to our high-raised phantasy present 5
That undisturbèd song of pure concent,
Aye sung before the sapphire-coloured throne
To Him that sits thereon,
With saintly shout, and solemn jubilee;
Where the bright Seraphim in burning row 10
Their loud up-lifted angel-trumpets blow;
And the Cherubic host in thousand quires
Touch their immortal harps of golden wires,
With those just Spirits that wear victorious palms,
Hymns devout and holy psalms 15
Singing everlastingly:
That we on earth, with undiscording voice,
May rightly answer that melodious noise;
As once we did, till disproportioned sin
Jarred against Nature’s chime, and with harsh din 20
Broke the fair music that all creatures made
To their great Lord, whose love their motion swayed
In perfect diapason, whilst they stood,
In first obedience and their state of good.
Oh may we soon again renew that song, 25
And keep in tune with Heaven, till God ere long
To his celestial consort us unite,
To live with Him, and sing in endless morn of light!
_John Milton._
LXXXIV
_THE RAINBOW._
Still young and fine! but what is still in view
We slight as old and soiled, though fresh and new.
How bright wert thou, when Shem’s admiring eye
Thy burnished, flaming arch did first descry!
When Terah, Nahor, Haran, Abram, Lot, 5
The youthful world’s gray fathers, in one knot
Did with intentive looks watch every hour
For thy new light, and trembled at each shower!
When thou dost shine, darkness looks white and fair,
Forms turn to music, clouds to smiles and air: 10
Rain gently spends his honey-drops, and pours
Balm on the cleft earth, milk on grass and flowers.
Bright pledge of peace and sunshine! the sure tie
Of thy Lord’s hand, the object of his eye!
When I behold thee, though my light be dim, 15
Distant and low, I can in thine see Him,
Who looks upon thee from his glorious throne,
And minds the covenant betwixt all and One.
_Henry Vaughan._
LXXXV
_L’ALLEGRO._
Hence, loathèd Melancholy,
Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born,
In Stygian cave forlorn,
’Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy!
Find out some uncouth cell, 5
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. 10
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, 15
To ivy-crownèd 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, 20
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 25
Jest, and youthful Jollity,
Quips, and cranks, and wanton wiles,
Nods, and becks, and wreathèd smiles,
Such as hang on Hebe’s cheek,
And love to live in dimple sleek; 30
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 35
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 unreprovèd pleasures free; 40
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, 45
And at my window bid good morrow,
Through the sweet-briar, or the vine,
Or the twisted eglantine:
While the cock, with lively din,
Scatters the rear of darkness thin; 50
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, 55
Through the high wood echoing shrill:
Sometimes walking, not unseen,
By hedge-row elms, on hillocks green,
Right against the eastern gate
Where the great Sun begins his state, 60
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, 65
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; 70
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, 75
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. 80
Hard by, a cottage chimney smokes,
From betwixt two agèd oaks,
Where Corydon and Thyrsis, met,
Are at their savoury dinner set
Of herbs, and other country messes, 85
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. 90
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, 95
Dancing in the chequered shade;
And young and old come forth to play
On a sunshine holiday,
Till the livelong daylight fail:
Then to the spicy nut-brown ale, 100
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 drudging goblin sweat, 105
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 lubbar-fiend, 110
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, 115
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, 120
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 125
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. 130
Then to the well-trod stage anon,
If Jonson’s learnèd sock be on,
Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy’s child,
Warble his native wood-notes wild.
And ever against eating cares 135
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 linkèd sweetness long drawn out, 140
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 145
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. 150
These delights if thou canst give,
Mirth, with thee I mean to live.
_John Milton._
LXXXVI
_IL PENSEROSO._
Hence, vain deluding Joys,
The brood of Folly without father bred!
How little you bested,
Or fill the fixèd mind with all your toys!
Dwell in some idle brain, 5
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. 10
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 15
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 20
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 25
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,
Whilst yet there was no fear of Jove. 30
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 cypres lawn, 35
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: 40
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, 45
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: 50
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, 55
’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: 60
Sweet bird, that shunn’st the noise of folly,
Most musical, most melancholy!
Thee, chantress, oft, the woods among,
I woo, to hear thy even-song;
And, missing thee, I walk unseen 65
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; 70
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, 75
Swinging slow with sullen roar:
Or, if the air will not permit,
Some still removèd place will fit,
Where glowing embers through the room
Teach light to counterfeit a gloom; 80
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 85
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 90
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 95
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; 100
Or what, though rare, of later age
Ennobled hath the buskined stage.
But, O sad Virgin, that thy power
Might raise Musæus from his bower!
Or bid the soul of Orpheus sing 105
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, 110
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: 115
And if aught else great bards beside
In sage and solemn tunes have sung,
Of turneys, and of trophies hung,
Of forests and enchantments drear,
Where more is meant than meets the ear. 120
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, 125
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. 130
And, when the sun begins to fling
His flaring beams, me, Goddess, bring
To archèd walks of twilight groves,
And shadows brown, that Sylvan loves,
Of pine, or monumental oak, 135
Where the rude axe with heavèd 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, 140
Hide me from day’s garish eye,
While the bee with honied thigh,
That at her flowery work doth sing,
And the waters murmuring,
With such consort as they keep, 145
Entice the dewy-feather’d Sleep;
And let some strange mysterious dream
Wave at his wings, in aery stream
Of lively portraiture displayed,
Softly on my eyelids laid. 150
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 155
To walk the studious cloisters pale,
And love the high-embowèd roof
With antique pillars massy-proof,
And storied windows richly dight,
Casting a dim religious light: 160
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, 165
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 170
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, 175
And I with thee will choose to live.
_John Milton._
LXXXVII
_CONTENTATION._
DIRECTED TO MY DEAR FATHER, AND MOST WORTHY FRIEND, MR. ISAAC WALTON.
Heaven, what an age is this! what race
Of giants are sprung up, that dare
Thus fly in the Almighty’s face,
And with his Providence make war!
I can go nowhere but I meet 5
With malcontents and mutineers,
As if in life was nothing sweet,
And we must blessings reap in tears.
O senseless man! that murmurs still
For happiness, and does not know, 10
Even though he might enjoy his will,
What he would have to make him so.
Is it true happiness to be
By undiscerning Fortune placed
In the most eminent degree, 15
Where few arrive, and none stand fast?
Titles and wealth are Fortune’s toils,
Wherewith the vain themselves ensnare:
The great are proud of borrowed spoils,
The miser’s plenty breeds his care. 20
The one supinely yawns at rest,
The other eternally doth toil;
Each of them equally a beast,
A pampered horse, or labouring moil:
The titulados oft disgraced 25
By public hate or private frown,
And he whose hand the creature raised,
Has yet a foot to kick him down.
The drudge who wold all get, all save,
Like a brute beast both feeds and lies; 30
Prone to the earth, he digs his grave,
And in the very labour dies.
Excess of ill-got, ill-kept, pelf
Does only death and danger breed;
Whilst one rich worldling starves himself 35
With what would thousand others feed.
By which we see that wealth and power,
Although they make men rich and great,
The sweets of life do often sour,
And gull ambition with a cheat. 40
Nor is he happier than these,
Who in a moderate estate,
Where he might safely live at ease,
Has lusts that are immoderate.
For he, by those desires misled, 45
Quits his own vine’s securing shade,
To’ expose his naked, empty head
To all the storms man’s peace invade.
Nor is he happy who is trim,
Tricked up in favours of the fair, 50
Mirrors, with every breath made dim.
Birds, caught in every wanton snare.
Woman, man’s greatest woe or bliss,
Does ofter far, than serve, enslave,
And with the magic of a kiss 55
Destroys whom she was made to save.
Oh! fruitful grief, the world’s disease!
And vainer man, to make it so,
Who gives his miseries increase
By cultivating his own woe. 60
There are no ills but what we make
By giving shapes and names to things;
Which is the dangerous mistake
That causes all our sufferings.
We call that sickness, which is health; 65
That persecution, which is grace;
That poverty, which is true wealth;
And that dishonour, which is praise.
Alas! our time is here so short,
That in what state soe’er ’tis spent, 70
Of joy or woe, does not import,
Provided it be innocent.
But we may make it pleasant too,
If we will take our measures right,
And not what Heaven has done, undo 75
By an unruly appetite.
The world is full of beaten roads,
But yet so slippery withal,
That where one walks secure, ’tis odds
A hundred and a hundred fall. 80
Untrodden paths are then the best,
Where the frequented are unsure;
And he comes soonest to his rest,
Whose journey has been most secure.
It is content alone that makes 85
Our pilgrimage a pleasure here;
And who buys sorrow cheapest, takes
An ill commodity too dear.
_Charles Cotton._
LXXXVIII
_IN PRAISE OF HOPE._
Hope, of all ills that men endure
The only cheap and universal cure!
Thou captive’s freedom, and thou sick man’s health!
Thou loser’s victory, and thou beggar’s wealth!
Thou manna, which from heaven we eat, 5
To every taste a several meat!
Thou strong retreat, thou sure entailed estate,
Which nought has power to alienate!
Thou pleasant, honest flatterer, for none
Flatter unhappy men, but thou alone! 10
Hope, thou first-fruits of happiness!
Thou gentle dawning of a bright success!
Thou good preparative, without which our joy
Does work too strong, and whilst it cures, destroy;
Who out of fortune’s reach dost stand, 15
And art a blessing still in hand!
Whilst thee, her earnest-money, we retain,
We certain are to gain,
Whether she her bargain break, or else fulfil;
Thou only good, not worse for ending ill! 20
Brother of Faith, ’twixt whom and thee
The joys of Heaven and earth divided be!
Though Faith be heir, and have the fixed estate,
Thy portion yet in moveables is great.
Happiness itself’s all one 25
In thee, or in possession!
Only the future’s thine, the present his!
Thine’s the more hard and noble bliss;
Best apprehender of our joys, which hast
So long a reach, and yet canst hold so fast! 30
Hope, thou sad lover’s only friend!
Thou way, that may’st dispute it with the end!
For love, I fear, ’s a fruit that does delight
The taste itself less than the smell and sight.
Fruition more deceitful is 35
Than thou canst be, when thou dost miss;
Men leave thee by obtaining, and straight flee
Some other way again to thee:
And that’s a pleasant country, without doubt,
To which all soon return that travel out. 40
_Abraham Cowley._
LXXXIX
_PROLOGUE._
TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. SPOKEN BY MR. HART, AT THE ACTING OF ‘THE
SILENT WOMAN.’
What Greece, when learning flourished, only knew,
Athenian judges, you this day renew.
Here too are annual rites to Pallas done,
And here poetic prizes lost or won.
Methinks I see you, crowned with olives, sit, 5
And strike a sacred horror from the pit.
A day of doom is this of your decree,
Where even the best are but by mercy free:
A day, which none but Jonson durst have wished to see,
Here they, who long have known the useful stage, 10
Come to be taught themselves to teach the age.
As your commissioners our poets go,
To cultivate the virtue which you sow;
In your Lycæum first themselves refined,
And delegated thence to human-kind. 15
But as ambassadors, when long from home,
For new instructions to their princes come,
So poets, who your precepts have forgot,
Return, and beg they may be better taught:
Follies and faults elsewhere by them are shown, 20
But by your manners they correct their own.
The illiterate writer, empiric-like, applies
To minds diseased, unsafe, chance remedies:
The learned in schools, where knowledge first began,
Studies with care the anatomy of man; 25
Sees virtue, vice, and passions, in their cause,
And fame from science, not from fortune, draws.
So poetry, which is in Oxford made
An art, in London only is a trade.
There haughty dunces, whose unlearnèd pen 30
Could ne’er spell grammar, would be reading men.
Such build their poems the Lucretian way;
So many huddled atoms make a play;
And if they hit in order by some chance,
They call that nature which is ignorance. 35
To such a fame let mere town-wits aspire,
And their gay nonsense their own cits admire.
Our poet, could he find forgiveness here,
Would wish it rather than a plaudit there.
He owns no crown from those Prætorian bands, 40
But knows that right is in the senate’s hands,
Not impudent enough to hope your praise,
Low at the Muses’ feet his wreath he lays,
And, where he took it up, resigns his bays. 45
Kings make their poets whom themselves think fit,
But ’tis your suffrage makes authentic wit.
_John Dryden._
XC
_PROLOGUE._
TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD.
Though actors cannot much of learning boast,
Of all who want it, we admire it most:
We love the praises of a learnèd pit,
As we remotely are allied to wit.
We speak our poet’s wit; and trade in ore, 5
Like those who touch upon the golden shore;
Betwixt our judges can distinction make,
Discern how much, and why, our poems take:
Mark if the fools, or men of sense, rejoice;
Whether the applause be only sound or voice. 10
When our fop-gallants, or our city-folly,
Clap over-loud, it makes us melancholy:
We doubt that scene which does their wonder raise,
And, for their ignorance, contemn their praise.
Judge then, if we who act, and they who write, 15
Should not be proud of giving you delight.
London likes grossly; but this nicer pit
Examines, fathoms all the depths of wit;
The ready finger lays on every blot;
Knows what should justly please, and what should not. 20
Nature herself lies open to your view;
You judge by her, what draught of her is true,
Where outlines false, and colours seem too faint,
Where bunglers daub, and where true poets paint.
But, by the sacred genius of this place, 25
By every Muse, by each domestic grace,
Be kind to wit, which but endeavours well,
And, where you judge, presumes not to excel.
Our poets hither for adoption come,
As nations sued to be made free of Rome: 30
Not in the suffragating tribes to stand,
But in your utmost, last, provincial band.
If his ambition may those hopes pursue,
Who with religion loves your arts and you,
Oxford to him a dearer name shall be 35
Than his own mother University.
Thebes did his green unknowing youth engage;
He chooses Athens in his riper age.
_John Dryden._
XCI
_DISTICHES._
River is time in water; as it came,
Still so it flows; yet never is the same.
I wake, and so new live; a night’s protection
Is a new wonder, whiles a resurrection.
The sun’s up; yet myself and God most bright 5
I can’t see; I’m too dark, and He’s too light.
Let devout prayér cast me to the ground,
So shall I yet to heaven be nearer found.
Clay, sand, and rock seem of a different birth;
So men; some stiff, some loose, some firm; all earth! 10
By red, green, blue, which sometimes paint the air,
Guilt, pardon, Heaven, the rainbow does declare.
The world’s a prison; no man can get out;
Let the atheist storm then; Heaven is round about.
The rose is but the flower of a briar; 15
The good man has an Adam to his sire.
The dying mole, some say, opens his eyes;
The rich, till ’tis too late, will not be wise.
The sick hart eats a snake, and so grows well;
Repentance digests sin, and man ’scapes hell. 20
Flies, oft removed, return. Do they want fear,
Or shame, or memory? Flies are everywhere.
Pride cannot see itself by mid-day light;
The peacock’s tail is farthest from his sight.
The swallow’s a quick arrow, that may show 25
With what an instant swiftness life doth flow.
The nightingale’s a quire, no single note;
O various power of God in one small throat!
The silkworm’s its own wonder; without loom
It does provide itself a silken room. 30
The moon is the world’s glass; in which ’twere strange
If we saw her’s and saw not our own change.
Herodotus is history’s fresh youth;
Thucydides is judgment, age, and truth.
In sadness, Machiavel, thou didst not well, 35
To help the world to run faster to hell.
The Italian’s the world’s gentleman, the Court
To which thrift, wit, lust, and revenge resort.
Bogs, purgatory, wolves, and ease, by fame
Are counted Ireland’s earth, mistake, curse, shame. 40
The Indies, Philip, spread not like thy robe;
Art thou the new horizon to the globe?
Down, pickaxe; to the depths for gold let’s go;
We’ll undermine Peru. Is’nt heaven below?
Who gripes too much casts all upon the ground; 45
Too great a greatness greatness doth confound.
All things are wonder since the world began;
The world’s a riddle, and the meaning’s man.
_Barten Holyday._
XCII
_FAME UNMERITED._
There’s none should places have in Fame’s high court
But those that first do win Invention’s fort;
Not messengers, that only make report.
To messengers rewards of thanks are due
For their great pains, telling their message true, 5
But not the honour to invention new.
Many there are that suits will make to wear
Of several patches, stoln both here and there,
That to the world they gallants may appear:
And the poor vulgar, who but little know, 10
And reverence all that makes a glistering show,
Examine not the same how they came to.
Then do they call their friends and all their kin;
They factions make the ignorant to win,
And with their help into Fame’s court get in. 15
_Duchess of Newcastle._
XCIII
_ON THE DEATH OF PRINCE HENRY, SON OF JAMES THE FIRST._