In unreproved pleasures free; 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, 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, 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, Through the high wood echoing shrill.
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.
FROM "IL PENSEROSO."
HENCE, vain deluding joys,
The 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 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, And therefore to our weaker view
O'erlaid with black, staid Wisdom's hue;
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 shoulder drawn. Come, but keep thy wonted state With even step, and musing gait ; And looks commércing 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.
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 kerchieft in a comely cloud,
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. 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,
Where the rude axe, with heaved 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, Hide me from day's garish eye, While the bee with honeyed thigh,
That at her flowery work doth sing, And the waters murmuring,
With such concert as they keep, Entice the dewy-feathered sleep; And let some strange mysterious dream Wave at his wings in aery stream Of lively portraiture displayed Softly on my eyelids laid.
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 To walk the studious cloister's pale, And love the high-embowed roof, With antique pillars massy proof, And storied windows richly dight, Casting a dim religious light: 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,
And bring all heaven before mine eyes.
FROM POEM ON THE DEATH OF A FAIR INFANT.
O FAIREST flower, no sooner blown but blasted; Soft silken primrose, fading timelessly; Summer's chief honour, if thou hadst outlasted Bleak winter's force that made thy blossom dry; For he, being amorous on that lovely dye
That did thy cheek envermeil, thought to kiss, But killed, alas! and then bewailed his fatal bliss.
Yet can I not persuade me thou art dead, Or that thy corse corrupts in earth's dark womb, Or that thy beauties lie in wormy bed, Hid from the world in a low-delved tomb; Could Heaven for pity thee so strictly doom? Oh no! for something in thy face did shine Above mortality, that showed thou wast divine.
Resolve me, then, oh soul, most surely blest! (If so it be that thou these plaints dost hear); Tell me, bright spirit, where'er thou hoverest, Whether above that high first-moving sphere, Or in the Elysian fields (if such were there);
Oh say me true, if thou wert mortal wight, And why from us so quickly thou didst take thy flight?
But oh! why didst thou not stay here below To bless us with thy heaven-loved innocence, To slake his wrath whom sin hath made our foe, To turn swift-rushing black perdition hence, Or drive away the slaughtering pestilence,
To stand 'twixt us and our deserved smart? But thou canst best perform that office where thou art. Then thou, the mother of so sweet a child, Her false-imagined loss cease to lament, And wisely learn to curb thy sorrows wild; Think what a present thou to God hast sent, And render him with patience what he lent; This if thou do, he will an offspring give, That till the world's last end shall make thy name to live.
ON THE MASSACRE IN PIEDMONT. 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 worshipt 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. The 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.
ON HIS BLINDNESS.
WHEN I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide, Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent To serve therewith my Maker, and present My true account, lest he, returning, chide; "Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?" I fondly ask: but Patience, to prevent That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need Either man's work, or his own gifts; who best Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best: his state Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed,
And post o'er land and ocean without rest: They also serve who only stand and wait."
A POET and courtier, celebrated in the court of Charles I. He became implicated in the political troubles of the age, and fled to France, where he died in 1641.
FROM A BALLAD UPON A WEDDING.
THE maid, and thereby hangs a tale, For such a maid no Whitsun-ale Could ever yet produce:
No grape that's kindly ripe could be So round, so plump, so soft as she, Nor half so full of juice.
Her finger was so small, the ring Would not stay on which they did bring; It was too wide a peck : And, to say truth-for out it must- It looked like the great collar-just- About our young colt's neck.
Her feet beneath her petticoat, Like little mice, stole in and out, As if they feared the light:
But oh! she dances such a way! No sun upon an Easter-day Is half so fine a sight.
Her cheeks so rare a white was on,
No daisy makes comparison;
Who sees them is undone ;.
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