Some other nymphs with colours faint,
And pencil slow, may Cupid paint,
And a weak heart in time destroy;
She has a stamp, and prints the boy;
Can with a single look inflame
The coldest breast, the rudest tame.

Edmund Waller.-Born 1605, Died 1687.

601. THE SELF-BANISHED.

It is not that I love you less,
Than when before your feet I lay;
But to prevent the sad increase

Of hopeless love, I keep away.

In vain, alas! for everything

Which I have known belong to you Your form does to my fancy bring,

And makes my old wounds bleed anew.

Who in the spring, from the new sun,
Already has a fever got,

Too late begins those shafts to shun,

Which Phoebus through his veins has shot.

Too late he would the pain assuage,

And to thick shadows does retire;
About with him he bears the rage,
And in his tainted blood the fire.

But vow'd I have, and never must
Your banish'd servant trouble you;
For if I break, you may mistrust

The vow I made-to love you too.

Edmund Waller.-Born 1605, Died 1687.

602.-THE NIGHT-PIECE, OR A PICTURE DRAWN IN THE DARK.

Darkness, which fairest nymphs disarms,
Defends us ill from Mira's charms:
Mira can lay her beauty by,
Take no advantage of the eye,
Quit all that Lely's art can take,
And yet a thousand captives make.

Her speech is graced with sweeter sound
Than in another's song is found;
And all her well-placed words are darts,
Which need no light to reach our hearts.

As the bright stars and Milky-way,
Show'd by the night, are hid by day;
So we, in that accomplish'd mind,
Help'd by the night, new graces find,
Which by the splendour of her view,
Dazzled before, we never knew.

While we converse with her, we mark
No want of day, nor think it dark:
Her shining image is a light
Fix'd in our hearts, and conquers night.

Like jewels to advantage set,
Her beauty by the shade does get;

There blushes, frowns, and cold disdain,
All that our passion might restrain,
Is hid, and our indulgent mind
Presents the fair idea kind.

Yet friended by the night, we dare
Only in whispers tell our care:
He that on her his bold hand lays,
With Cupid's pointed arrows plays;
They with a touch (they are so keen!)
Wound us unshot, and she unseen.
All near approaches threaten death;
We may be shipwreck'd by her breath:
Love favour'd once with that sweet gale,
Doubles his haste, and fills his sail,
Till he arrive where she must prove
The haven or the rock of love.

So we th' Arabian coast do know
At distance, when the spices blow!
By the rich odour taught to steer,
Though neither day nor stars appear.
Edmund Waller.-Born 1605, Died 1687.

603.-L'ALLEGRO.

Hence, loathed Melancholy,

Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born,
In Stygian cave forlorn,

'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and
sights unholy!

Find out some uncouth cell,

Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings,

And the night-raven sings;

There under ebon shades, and low-brow'd rocks,

As ragged as thy locks,

In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell.

But come, thou goddess fair and free,
In Heaven yclep'd Euphrosyne,
And by men, heart-easing Mirth;
Whom lovely Venus, at a birth,
With two sister Graces more,
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;
There on beds of violets blue,

And fresh-blown roses wash'd in dew,
Fill'd her with thee, a daughter fair,
So buxom, blithe, and debonair.

Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee
Jest and youthful Jollity,

Quips, and Cranks, and wanton Wiles,
Nods, and Becks, and wreathed Smiles,
Such as hang on Hebe's cheek,
And love to live in dimple sleek;
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
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.
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 sweetbrier, 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 :
Some time walking, not unseen,
By hedge-row elms, on hillocks green,
Right against the eastern gate
Where the great Sun begins his state,
Robed in flames, and amber light,
The clouds in thousand liveries dight;
While the ploughman, near at hand,
Whistles o'er the furrow'd land,
And the milkmaid singeth blithe,
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;
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,
Shallow brooks, and rivers wide:
Towers and battlements it sees
Bosom'd high in tufted trees,
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 Phyllis 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 chequer'd shade;
And young and old come forth to play
On a sun-shine holiday,
Till the live-long daylight fail:
Then to the spicy nut-brown ale,
With stories told of many a feat,
How faery 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 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,
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,
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

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

Of heap'd Elysian flowers, and hear

Such strains as would have won the ear
Of Pluto, to have quite set free
His half-regain'd Eurydice.

These delights if thou canst give,
Mirth, with thee I mean to live.

Milton.-Born 1608, Died 1674.

604.-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 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 Cyprus 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 retirèd Leisure,
That in trim gardens takes his pleasure:
But first, and chiefest, with thee bring,
Him that von 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,

Smoothing the rugged brow of Night,
While Cynthia checks her dragon yoke,
Gently o'er the accustom'd oak:

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
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 tow'd,
Stooping through a fleecy cloud.
Oft, on a plat of rising ground,
I hear the far-off Curfeu sound,

Over some wide-water'd shore,
Swinging slow with sullen roar:
Or, if the air will not permit,
Some still removed place will fit,
Where glowing embers through the room
Teach light to counterfeit a gloom;
Far from all resort of mirth,
Save the cricket on the hearth,
Or the belman's drowsy charm,

To bless the doors from nightly harm.
Or let my lamp at midnight hour,
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
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 scepter'd 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 buskin'd 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
The story of Cambuscan bold,
Of Camball, and of Algarsife,
And who had Canace to wife,

That own'd 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,

Not trick'd and frounced as she was wont
With the Attic boy to hunt,

But kercheft in a comely cloud,

While rocking winds are piping loud,

Or usher'd 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 heavèd stroke,
Was never heard the nymphs to daunt,
Or fright them from their hallow'd 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 honey'd thigh,
That at her flowery work doth sing,
And the waters murmuring,
With such consort as they keep,
Entice the dewy-feather'd Sleep;
And let some strange mysterious dream
Wave at his wings in aery stream
Of lively portraiture display'd,
Softly on my eyelids laid.

And, as I wake, sweet music breathe
Above, about, or underneath,
Sent by some spirit to mortal 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-embowèd 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 car,
Dissolve me into ecstasies,

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
Of every star that Heaven doth shew,
And every herb that sips the dew;
Till old experienee do attain
To something like prophetic strain.
These pleasures, Melancholy, give,
And I with thee will choose to live.

Milton.-Born 1608, Died 1674.

605.-LYCIDAS.

Yet once more, O ye laurels, and once more,
Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never-sere,
I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude:
And, with forced fingers rude,
Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year:
Bitter constraint, and sad occasion dear,
Compels me to disturb your season due :
For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime,
Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer:
Who would not sing for Lycidas? he knew
Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme.
He must not float upon his watery bier
Unwept, and welter to the parching wind,
Without the meed of some melodious tear.

Begin then, Sisters of the sacred well, That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring;

Begin, and somewhat loudly sweep the string.
Hence with denial vain, and coy excuse :
So may some gentle Muse

With lucky words favour my destined urn;
And, as he passes, turn,

And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud.

When first the white-thorn blows;
Such, Lycidas, thy loss to shepherd's ear.

Where were ye, Nymphs, when the remorse-
less deep

Closed o'er the head of your loved Lycidas? For neither were ye playing on the steep, Where your old bards, the famous Druids, lie,

Nor on the shaggy top of Mona high,

Nor yet where Deva spreads her wizard stream: Ay me! I fondly dream!

Had ye been there-for what could that have done?

What could the Muse herself that Orpheus bore,

The Muse herself, for her enchanting son,
Whom universal Nature did lament,
When, by the rout that made the hideous roar,
His gory visage down the stream was sent,
Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore?
Alas! what boots it with incessant care
To tend the homely, slighted, shepherd's
trade,

And strictly meditate the thankless Muse?
Were it not better done, as others use,
To sport with Amaryllis in the shade,
Or with the tangles of Neæra's hair?

Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise

(That last infirmity of noble mind)

To scorn delights and live laborious days;

But the fair guerdon when we hope to find, And think to burst out into sudden blaze, Comes the blind Fury with the abhorrèd shears,

And slits the thin-spun life. "But not the praise,"

Phoebus replied, and touch'd my trembling

ears;

"Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil, Nor in the glistering foil

Set off to the world, nor in broad rumour lies: But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes,

And perfect witness of all-judging Jove;
As he pronounces lastly on each deed,

Of so much fame in Heaven expect thy meed." O fountain Arethuse, and thou honour'd flood,

Smooth-sliding Mincius, crown'd with vocal reeds!

That strain I heard was of a higher mood:
But now my oat proceeds,

And listens to the herald of the sea
That came in Neptune's plea ;

He ask'd the waves, and ask'd the felon winds,

What hard mishap hath doom'd this gentle swain ?

And question'd every gust of rugged wings
That blows from off each beakèd promontory:
They knew not of his story;

And sage Hippotades their answer brings,
That not a blast was from his dungeon stray'd;
The air was calm, and on the level brine
Sleek Panope with all her sisters play'd.
It was that fatal and perfidious bark,

Built in the eclipse, and rigg'd with curses dark,

That sunk so low that sacred head of thine.

Next Camus, reverend sire, went footing slow,

His mantle hairy, and his bonnet sedge,

Inwrought with figures dim, and on the edge Like to that sanguine flower inscribed with

Last came, and last did go,

The pilot of the Galilean lake;

Two massy keys he bore of metals twain, (The golden opes, the iron shuts amain.)

He shook his miter'd locks, and stern bespake: 'How well could I have spared for thee, young swain,

Enow of such, as for their bellies' sake
Creep, and intrude, and climb into the fold?
Of other care they little reckoning make,
Than how to scramble at the shearer's feast,
And shove away the worthy bidden guest;
Blind mouths! that scarce themselves know
how to hold

A sheep-hook, or have learn'd aught else the least

That to the faithful herdman's art belongs! What recks it them? What need they? They are sped;

And, when they list, their lean and flashy

songs

Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched

straw,

The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed, But, swoln with wind and the rank mist they draw,

Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread:
Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw
Daily devours apace, and nothing fed:
But that two-handed engine at the door
Stands ready to smite once, and smite no

more.'

Return, Alpheus, the dread voice is past, That shrunk thy streams; return, Sicilian Muse,

And call the vales, and bid them hither cast Their bells, and flowerets of a thousand hues. Ye valleys low, where the mild whispers use Of shades, and wanton winds, and gushing brooks,

On whose fresh lap the swart-star sparely looks;

Throw hither all your quaint enamell'd eyes, That on the green turf suck the honey'd showers,

And purple all the ground with vernal flowers. Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies, The tufted crow-toe, and pale jessamine,

The white pink, and the pansy freak'd with jet,

Wash far away, where'er thy bones are hurl'd,
Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides,
Where thou, perhaps, under the whelming
tide,

Visit'st the bottom of the monstrous world;
Or whether thou, to our moist vows denied,
Sleep'st by the fable of Bellerus old,

Where the great vision of the guarded mount Looks toward Namancos and Bayona's hold; Look homeward, angel, now, and melt with ruth:

And, O ye dolphins, waft the hapless youth.

Weep no more, woful shepherds, weep no more,

For Lycidas your sorrow is not dead,
Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor;
So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed,
And yet anon repairs his drooping head,
And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled

ore

Flames in the forehead of the morning sky: