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Besides the force it has to fright
The spirits of the shady night,

The same arts that did gain
A power, must it maintain.

CIV

Andrew Marvell.

ON THE LATE MASSACRE IN PIEMONT.

Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones
Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold;
Even them who kept thy truth so pure of old,
When all our fathers worshipped stocks and stones,
Forget not in thy book record their groans
Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient fold
Slain by the bloody Piemontese that rolled
Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans
The vales redoubled to the hills, and they

To heaven. Their martyred blood and ashes sow
O'er all the Italian fields, where still doth sway
The triple tyrant; that from these may grow
A hundred fold, who, having learned thy way,
Early may fly the Babylonian woe.

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ΙΟ

John Milton.

CV

HYMN TO LIGHT.

First-born of Chaos, who so fair didst come

From the old Negro's darksome womb!

Which, when it saw the lovely child,

The melancholy mass put on kind looks and smiled :

Thou tide of glory which no rest dost know,

But ever ebb and ever flow!

Thou golden shower of a true Jove!

Who does in thee descend, and heaven to earth make love!

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Say, from what golden quivers of the sky

Do all thy wingèd arrows fly?

Swiftness and power by birth are thine;

From thy great sire they came, thy sire, the Word Divine.

'Tis, I believe, this archery to show,

That so much cost in colours thou

And skill in painting dost bestow

Upon thy ancient arms, the gaudy heavenly bow.

Swift as light thoughts their empty carriere run,
Thy race is finished when begun ;

Let a post-angel start with thee,

And thou the goal of earth shalt reach as soon as he.

Thou in the moon's bright chariot proud and gay
Dost thy bright wood of stars survey;

And all the year dost with thee bring

Of thousand flowery lights thine own nocturnal spring.

IO

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Thou, Scythian-like, dost round thy lands, above

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The shining pageants of the world attend thy show.

Nor amidst all these triumphs dost thou scorn

The humble glowworms to adorn,

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And with those living spangles gild

(O greatness without pride!) the bushes of the field.

Night and her ugly subjects dost thou fright,

And sleep, the lazy owl of night;

Ashamed and fearful to appear,

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They screen their horrid shapes with the black hemisphere.

With them there hastes, and wildly takes the alarm,

Of painted dreams a busy swarm ;

At the first opening of thine eye

The various clusters break, the antic atoms fly.

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When, Goddess, thou lift'st up thy wakened head
Out of the Morning's purple bed,

Thy choir of birds about thee play,

And all thy joyful world salutes the rising day.

All the world's bravery that delights our eyes,
Is but thy several liveries;

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Thou the rich dye on them bestowest,

Thy nimble pencil paints this landscape as thou goest.

A crimson garment in the rose thou wear'st;

A crown of studded gold thou bear'st;

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The virgin lilies, in their white,

Are clad but with the lawn of almost naked light.

The violet, spring's little infant, stands

Girt in thy purple swaddling-bands;

On the fair tulip thou dost dote,

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Thou cloth'st it in a gay and parti-coloured coat.

With flame condensed thou dost thy jewels fix,
And solid colours in it mix:

Flora herself envies to see

Flowers fairer than her own, and durable as she.

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Through the soft ways of heaven and air and sea,

Which open all their pores to thee,

Like a clear river thou dost glide,

And with thy living stream through the close channels slide.

But where firm bodies thy free course oppose,

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Gently thy source the land o'erflows;

Takes there possession, and does make,

Of colours' mingled light, a thick and standing lake:

But the vast ocean of unbounded day

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In the empyrean heaven does stay;
Thy rivers, lakes, and springs below

From thence took first their rise, thither at last must flow.

Abraham Cowley.

CVI

TO THE ROYAL SOCIETY.

Philosophy! the great and only heir
Of all that human knowledge which has been
Unforfeited by man's rebellious sin,
Though full of years he do appear,
(Philosophy! I say, and call it He,
For whatsoe'er the painter's fancy be,
It a male virtue seems to me)

Has still been kept in nonage till of late,

Nor managed or enjoyed his vast estate.

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Three or four thousand years, one would have thought, 10 To ripeness and perfection might have brought

A science so well bred and nursed,

And of such hopeful parts, too, at the first;

But oh! the guardians and the tutors then,
(Some negligent, some ambitious men)
Would ne'er consent to set him free,
Or his own natural powers to let him see,

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Lest that should put an end to their authority.

That his own business he might quite forget,
They' amused him with the sports of wanton wit;
With the deserts of poetry they fed him,
Instead of solid meats to' increase his force;

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Instead of vigorous exercise they led him

Into the pleasant labyrinths of ever-fresh discourse:
Instead of carrying him to see

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Some few exalted spirits this latter age has shown,

That laboured to assert the liberty

(From guardians who were now usurpers grown)

Of this old minor still, captived Philosophy;

But 'twas rebellion called, to fight

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For such a long-oppressèd right.

Bacon, at last, a mighty man! arose,

Whom a wise King and Nature chose

Lord Chancellor of both their laws,

And boldly undertook the injured pupil's cause.

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Authority, which did a body boast,

Though 'twas but air condensed, and stalked about
Like some old giant's more gigantic ghost,

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To graves, from whence it rose, the conquered phantom fled.

He broke that monstrous god which stood,

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In midst of the orchard, and the whole did claim,

Which with a useless scythe of wood,

And something else not worth a name,

Bacon has broke that scarecrow deity:

(Ridiculous and senseless terrors!) made Children and superstitious men afraid. The orchard's open now, and free:

Come, enter all that will,

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Behold the ripened fruit, come, gather now your fill!

Yet still, methinks, we fain would be

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Catching at the forbidden tree;

We would be like the Deity;

When truth and falsehood, good and evil, we

Without the senses' aid within ourselves would see;

For 'tis God only who can find

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All nature in his mind.

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