Where, perhaps, some beauty lies,
The cynosure of neighbouring eyes.
- Hard by, a cottage chimney smokes
From betwixt two aged oaks,

Where Corydon and Thyrsis met,
Are at their savoury dinner set
Of herbs, and other country messes,
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 tann'd haycock in the mead.
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
Dancing in the checker'd shade;
And young and old come forth to play
On a sunshine holyday,

Till the live-long daylight fail:
Then to the spicy nut-brown ale,

With stories told of many a feat,
How fairy Mab the junkets eat;
She was pinch'd, and pull'd, she said;
And he, by friar's lantern led,
Tells how the drudging goblin sweat
To earn his cream-bowl duly set,
When, in one night, ere glimpse of morn,
His shadowy flail hath thresh'd the corn,
That ten day-labourers could not end;
Then lies him down, the lubber fiend,
And, stretch'd out al the chimney's length,
Basks at the fire his hairy strength;

ARK

Ani, crop-full, out of doors he flings,
Ere the first cock his matin rings.
Thus done the taies, to bed they creep,
By whispering winds soon lull'd asleep.
Tower'd cities please us then,

And the busy hum of men,

Where throngs of knights and barons bold,
In weeds of peace, high triumphs hold,
Wit 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
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.
Then to the well-trod stage anon,
If Jonson's learned sock be on.
Or sweetest Shakspeare, Fancy's child,
Warble his native wood-notes wild.

And ever, against eating cares,
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 linked sweetness long drawn out,
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,
From golden slumber on a bed

IL PENSEROSO

HENCE, Vain deluding joys,

Fue brood of Folly, without father bred!
How little you bested,

Or fill the fixed 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 sun-beams, 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,
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 starr'd 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-hair'd 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,
Whilst yet there was no fear of Jove.
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 cypress lawn,
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:
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,
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.
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.