Adjoined, from each thing met conceives delight;
The smell of grain, or tedded grass, or kine,
Or dairy, each rural sight, each rural sound;
If chance, with nymph-like step, fair virgin pass,
What pleasing seemed, for her now pleases more;
She most, and in her look sums all delight:
Such pleasure took the serpent to behold
This flowery plat, the sweet recess of Eve,
Thus early, thus alone.

MILTON

EXTRACTS FROM PARADISE REGAINED.

ROME. He brought our Saviour to the western side Of that high mountain, whence he might behold Another plain, long, but in breadth not wide, Washed by the southern sea, and, on the north To equal length backed with a ridge of hills, That screened the fruits of the earth, and seats of men, From cold septentrion blasts ; thence in the midst Divided by a river, on whose banks On each side an imperial city stood, With towers and temples proudly elevate On seven small hills, with palaces adorned, Porches, and theatres, baths, aqueducts, Statues, and trophies, and triumphal arcs, Gardens and groves presented to his eyes, Above the heighth of mountains interposed, (By what strange parallax or optic skill Of vision, multiplied through air, or glass Of telescope, were curious to inquire :) And now the Tempter thus his silence broke :

and see

“The city which thou seest, no other deem Than great and glorious Rome, queen of the earth, So far renowned, and with the spoils enriched Of nations; there the Capitol thou seest, Above the rest lifting his stately head On the Tarpeian rock, her citadel Impregnable ; and there mount Palatine, The imperial palace, compass huge, and high, The structure, skill of noblest architects, With gilded battlements, conspicuous far, Turrets, and terraces, and glittering spires : Many a fair edifice besides, more like Houses of gods, (so well I have disposed My aëry microscope,) thou may'st behold, Outside and inside both, pillars and roofs, Carved work, the hand of famed artificers, In cedar, marble, ivory, or gold.

“Thence to the gates cast round thine eye, What conflux issuing forth, or entering in: Prætors, proconsuls to their provinces Hasting, or on return, in robes of state, Lictors and rods, the ensigns of their power, Legions and cohorts, turms of horse and wings; Or embassies from regions far remote, In various habits, on the Appian road, Or on the Emilian : some from farthest south, Syene, and where the shadow both way falls, Meroe, Nilotic isle ; and, more to west, The realm of Bocchus to the Black-moor sea ; From the Asian kings, and Parthian among these, From India, and the Golden Chersonese, And utmost Indian isle Taprobane, Dusk faces with white silken turbans wreathed ; From Gallia, Gades, and the British west : Germans, and Scythians, and Sarmatians, north Beyond Danubius to the Tauric pool. All nations now to Rome obedience pay."

ATHENS.

“ WESTWARD, much nearer by south-west behold;
Where on the Ægean shore a city stands,
Built nobly, pure the air, and light the soil;
Athens, the eye of Greece, mother of arts
And eloquence, native to famous wits,
Or hospitable, in her sweet recess,
City or suburban, studious walks and shades.
See there the olive grove of Academe,
Plato's retirement, where the Attic bird
Trills her thick-warbled notes the summer long;
There flowery hill Hymettus, with the sound
Of bees' industrious murmur, oft invites
To studious musing; there Illissus rolls
His whispering stream: within the walls then view
The schools of ancient sages; his who bred
Great Alexander to subdue the world,
Lyceum there, and painted Stoa next :
There shalt thou hear and learn the secret power
Of harmony, in tones and numbers hit
By voice or hand, and various measured verse,
Æolian charms, and Dorian lyric odes,
And his who gave them breath, but higher sung,
Blind Melesigenes, thence Homer call'd,
Whose poem

Phæbus challenged for his own :
Thence what the lofty grave tragedians taught
In chorus or iambic, teachers best
Of moral prudence, with delight received
In brief sententious precepts, while they treat
Of fate, and chance, and change in human life,
High actions and high passions best describing :
Thence to the famous orators repair,

Those ancient, whose resistless eloquence
Wielded at will that fierce democratie,
Shook the arsenal, and fulmined over Greece
To Macedon and Artaxerxes' throne :
To sage philosophy next lend thine ear,
From heaven descended to the low-roofed house
Of Socrates.; see there his tenement,
Whom well inspired the oracle pronounced
Wisest of men ; from whose mouth issued forth
Mellifluous streams, that watered all the schools
Of Academics old and new, with those
Surnamed Peripatetics, and the sect
Epicurean, and the Stoic severe."

MILTON.

SONNETS OF MILTON.

1.-ON MRS. CATHERINE THOMPSON. WHEN faith and love, which parted from thee never,

Had ripened thy just soul to dwell with God,
Meekly thou didst resign this earthly load

Of death, called life; which us from life doth sever. Thy works, and alms, and all thy good endeavour,

Štaid not behind, nor in the grave were trod;
But, as faith pointed with her golden rod,

Followed thee up to joy and bliss for ever.
Love led them on, and faith, who knew them best,

Thy hand-maids clad them o'er with purple beams,

And azure wings, that up they flew so drest,
And spake the truth of thee on glorious themes

Before the Judge; who thenceforth bid thee rest,
And drink thy fil of pure immortal streams.

II.-ON THE LATE 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 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.

III.-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.”