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

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The hidden soul of harmony;

That Orpheus' self may heave his head
From golden slumber on a bed

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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.

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John Milton.

LXXXVI

IL PENSEROSO.

Hence, vain deluding Joys,

The brood of Folly wthout father bred! How little you bested,

Or fill the fixèd 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,

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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,

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Whilst yet there was no fear of Jove.

Come, pensive Nun, devout and pure,

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Sober, steadfast, and demure,

All in a robe of darkest grain,

Flowing with majestic train,
And sable stole of cypres lawn,
Over thy decent shoulders drawn.
Come, but keep thy wonted state,
With even step, and musing gait;
And looks commercing with the skies,

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And join with thee calm Peace, and Quiet,

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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:

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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,

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Smoothing the rugged brow of night,

While Cynthia checks her dragon-yoke

Gently o'er the accustomed oak:

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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;

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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.

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Or let my lamp at midnight hour

Be seen in some high lonely tower,

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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 Musæus 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

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 turneys, 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,

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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,

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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,

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Hide me from day's garish eye,

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But let my due feet never fail
To walk the studious cloisters pale,
And love the high-embowèd roof
With antique pillars massy-proof,