All to one female idol bend,
While her high pride does scarce descend
To mark their follies, he would swear
That these her guard of eunuchs were,
And that a more majestic queen,
Or humbler slaves, he had not seen.
All this with indignation spoke,
In vain I struggled with the yoke
Of mighty Love: that conqu'ring look,
When next beheld, like lightning strook
My blasted soul, and made me bow
Lower than those I pity'd now.
So the tall stag, upon the brink Of some smooth stream about to drink, Surveying there his armed head, With shame remembers that he fled The scorned dogs, resolves to try The combat next; but if their cry Invades again his trembling ear, He strait resumes his wonwu varug Leaves the untasted spring behind, And, wing'd with fear, outflies the wind.
MARRIAGE OF THE DWARFS.
Design or Chance makes others wive,
But Nature did this match contrive:
Eve might as well have Adam fled,
As she deny'd her little bed
To him, for whom Heav'n seem'd to frame
And measure out this only dame.
Thrice happy is that humble pair,
Beneath the level of all care!
Over whose heads those arrows fly
Of sad distrust and jealousy;
Secured in as high extreme
As if the world held none but them.
To him the fairest nymphs do shew
Like moving mountains topp'd with snow;
Aud ev'ry man a Polypheme
Does to his Galatea seem:
Noue may presume her faith to prove ;
A profters death that proffers love.
Ab Chlors! that kind Nature thus
Vow all the world had sever'd us;
Creating for ourselves us two,
As Love has me for only you!
ON A BREDE of divers COLOURS. Twice twenty slender virgin-fingers twine This curious web, where all their fancies shine. As nature them, so they this shade have wrought, Soft as their hands, and various as their thought. Not Juno's bird, when his fair train dispread, He woos the female to his painted bed:
No, not the bow, which so adorns the skies, o glorious is, or boasts so many dyes.
DEATH OF THE LORD PROTECTOR. We must resign! Heav'n his great soul does claim In storms, as loud as his immortal fame :
His dying groans, his last breath, shakes our isle,
And trees uncut fall for his fun'ral pile;
About his palace their broad roots are tost
Into the air.So Romulus was lost!
New Rome in such a tempest miss'd her king,
And from obeying fell to worshipping.
On Oeta's top thus Hercules lay dead,
With ruin'd oaks and pines about him spread.
The poplar, too, whose bough he wont to wear
On his victorious head, lay prostrate there.
Those his last fury from the mountain rent:
Our dying hero from the continenti Spaniards reft,
Ravish'd whole townsritain left.
As his last legch so long our hopes confin'd,
limits to his vaster mind;
Our bounds' enlargement was his latest toil,
Nor hath he left us pris'ners to our isle:
Under the tropic is our language spoke,
And part of Flanders hath receiv'd our yoke.
From civil broils he did us disengage,
Found nobler objects for our martial rage;
And, with wise conduct, to his country shew'd
The ancient way of conquering abroad.
Ungrateful then! if we no tears allow
To him that gave us peace and empire too.
Princes that fear'd him grieve, concern'd to see
No pitch of glory from the grave is free.
Nature herself took notice of his death,
And, sighing, swell'd the sea with such a breath,
That to remotest shores her billows roll'd,
Th' approaching fate of their great ruler told.
TO AMORET.
Fair! that you may truly know
What you unto Thyrsis owe,
I will tell you how I do
Sacharissa love and you.
Joy salutes me when I set
My blest eyes on Amoret ;
But with wonder I am strook,
While I on the other look.
If sweet Amoret complains,
I have sense of all her pains;
But for Sacharissa I
Do not only grieve, but die.
All that of myself is mine,
Lovely Amoret! is thine;
Sacharissa's captive fain
Would untie his iron chain,
And those scorching beams to shun,
To thy gentle shadow run.
If the soul had free election
To dispose of her affection,
I would not thus long have borne
Haughty Sacharissa's scorn:
But 'tis sure some pow'r above,
Which controls our wills in love!
If not love, a strong desire
To create and spread that fire
In my breast, solicits me,
Beauteous Amoret! for thee.
"Tis amazement more than love
Which her radiant eyes do move:
If less splendor wait on thine,
Yet they so benignly shine,
I would turn my dazzled sight
To behold their milder light:
But as hard 'tis to destroy
That high flame as to enjoy;
Which how eas❜ly I may do,
Heav'n (as eas❜ly scal'd) does know!
Amoret! as sweet and good
As the most delicious food,
Which but tasted does impart
Life and gladness to the heart.
Sacharissa's beauty's wine,
Which to madness doth incline;
Such a liquor as no brain
That is mortal can sustain.
Scarce can I to heav'n excuse
The devotion which I use
Unto that adored dame ;
For 'tis not unlike the same
Which I thither ought to send;
So that if it could take end,
"Twould to Heav'n itself be due,
To succeed her and not you;
Who already have of me
All that's not idolatry;
Which, though not so fierce a flame,
Is longer like to be the same.
Then smile on me, and I will prove Wonder is shorter liv'd than love.
TO A LADY IN RETIREMENT. Sees not my love how time resumes The glory which he lent these flow'rs; Though none should taste of their perfumes, Yet must they live but some few hours. Time what we forbear devours!
Had Helen, or the Egyptian Queen, Been ne'er so thrifty of their graces, Those beauties must at length have been The spoil of age, which finds out faces In the most retired places.
Should some malignant planet bring
A barren drought or ceaseless show'r
Upon the autumn or the spring,
And spare us neither fruit nor flow'r,
Winter would not stay an hour.
Could the resolve of love's neglect
Preserve you from the violation
Of coming years, then more respect
Were due to so divine a fashion,
Nor would I indulge my passion.
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 Cimerian desart ever dwell.
But come, thou Goddess, fair and free,
In Heav'n yclep'd Euphrosyne,
And by men, heart-easing Mirth,
Whom lovely Venus at a birth
With two sister Graces more
To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore;
Or whether (as some sages 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 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 sweetbriar, 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 list'ning how the hounds and horn
Cheerly rouse the slumb'ring 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,
Rob'd in flames, and amber light,
The clouds in thousand liveries dight,
While the plowman 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.
Strait mine eye hath caught new pleasures,
Whilst the landskip round it measures;
Russet lawns, and fallows gray,
Where the nibbling flocks do stray,
Mountains on whose barren breast
The lab'ring 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 neighb'ring eyes.
Hard by a cottage chimney smokes,
From betwixt two aged oaks,
Where Corydon and Thyrsis met,
Are at their savory 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 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-lab'rers could not end;
Then lies him down the lubbar 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 whisp'ring winds soon lull'd asleep.
Towered 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 Shakespear, 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 flow'rs, 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.
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 pow'rs 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,
While
yet there was no fear of Jove.
Come pensive nun, devout and pure,
Sober, stedfast, and demure,
All in a robe of darkest grain,
Following with majestic rain,
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,
Ay 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,
'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 th' accustom'd oak;
Sweet bird that shunn'st the noise of folly,
Most musical, most melancholy!
Thee chauntress oft the woods among
I woo to hear thy evening-song;
And missing thee, I walk unseen
On the dry smooth-shaven green,
To behold the wand'ring moon
Riding near her highest noon,
Like one that had been led astray
Through the Heav'ns wide pathless way;
And oft, as if her head she bow'd,
Stooping through a fleecy cloud.
Oft on a plat of rising ground,
I hear the far-off curfew 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,
H
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 bellman's drowsy charm,
To bless the doors from nightly harm.
Or let my lamp at midnight hour,
Be seen in some high lonely tow'r,
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 tourneys and of trophies hung,
Of forests and inchantments 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 flounced as she was wont
With the Attic boy to hunt,
But kerchief'd 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 heaved 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 honied thigh,
That at her flowery work doth sing,
And the waters murmuring,
With such concert as they keep,
Entice the dewy-feather'd sleep:
And let some strange mysterious dream
Wave at his wings in airy stream
Of lively portraiture display'd,
Softly on my eye-lids laid.
And as I wake, sweet music breathe
Above, about, or underneath,
Sent by some spirit to mortals good,
Or th' unseen Genius of the wood.
But let my due feet never fail
To walk the studious cloysters pale,
And love the high embowed roof,
With antic pillars massy proof,
And storied windows richly dight,
Casting a dim religious light.
There let the pealing organ blow
To the full voic'd quire below
In service high, and anthems clear,
As may with sweetness, through mine ear,
Dissolve me into ecstasies,
And bring all Heav'n 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 Heav'n doth shew,
And every herb that sips the dew;
Till old Experience do attain
To something like prophetic strain.
These pleasures, Melancholy, give,
And I with thee will choose to live.
Yet once more, O ye laurels, and once more
Ye Myrtles brown, with Ivy never sear,
I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude,
And with forc'd 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 rhime.
He must not float upon his wat'ry bier
Unwept, and welter to the parching wind,
Without the mead 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 destin'd urn,
And as he passes turn,
And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud:
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