Find out some uncouth cell,

Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings,

And the night raven sings;

There under ebon shades, and low-browed rocks,

As ragged as thy locks,

In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell.

But come, thou goddess fair and free,
In heaven ycleped Euphrosyne,1
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 sager2 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 washed in dew,
Filled 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 wreathed3 Smiles,

Such as hang on Hebe's cheek,

And love to live in dimple sleek;

Macaulay remarks, "not so much poems, as collections of hints, from each of which the reader is to make out a poem for himself. Every epithet is a text for a canto." The first ten lines, in contrast with the ten that follow, afford one of the finest specimens that can be found of the expressive music of verse. In reading them aloud, the voice is at first encumbered and detained amongst artful pauses, long syllables, and clusters of harsh consonants, until, at the tenth line, it is almost lost in the sombre gloom; in the next, it bursts as it were at once into life and light, and the very tone and beat of the verse are in the highest degree animating and picturesque.

(1) Euphrosyne-It may be remarked that the cheerfulness illustrated in this poem is not obstreperous and vulgar merriment, but such as it befits one of the Graces to inspire.

(2) As some sager, &c.—The allegory should be observed; on the one supposition, Mirth is the offspring of sensuality on the other, the wiser conjecture, of exercise, and the breezes of the early morning, betokened by Zephyr and Aurora.

(3) Wreathed-in allusion to the curling or curving of the features in the act of smiling, giving what is called an arch look.

X

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 dappled3 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: 5
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 :

"moun

(1) Mountain-nymph-Either because, as Dr. Newton conjectures, tainous countries are favourable to political liberty;" or because, as T. Warton thinks, Liberty, like an oread, loves the inaccessible and uncultivated scenes of nature, as "adapted to her free and uninterrupted range."

(2) Unreproved-i. e. unreprovable-not subject to reproof, blameless, innocent. Spenser has, "unreproved truth."

(3) Dappled-See note 5, p. 32.

(4) Then to come, &c.—It would be inconsistent with the lark's habits to come to a window; the meaning therefore seems to be :-After he has from his watchtower awakened the night, his glad notes in descending, heard from my window, will seem to bid me good-morrow, and make me cheerful, in spite of any sadness which may at the time oppress me.

(5) Eglantine-properly the sweetbrier; here, as the critics in their difficulty say, it must mean the honeysuckle.

(6) Oft listening, &c.- The construction is:-Mirth, admit me oft listening, &c., as a follower of thee-i. e. let me derive cheerful pleasure from listening, &c., and also from walking, not unseen, to behold the sun rise.

Sometime walking, not unseen,1
By hedge-row elms, on hillocks green,
Right against the eastern gate,
Where the great sun begins his state,2
Robed in flames, and amber light,
The clouds in thousand liveries dight;
While the ploughman, near at hand,
Whistles o'er the furrowed land;
And the milk-maid singeth blithe,
And the mower whets his scythe,
And every shepherd tells his tale,
Under the hawthorn in the dale.

3

Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures,
Whilst the landscape round it measures;

Russet lawns, and fallows grey,

Where the nibbling flocks do stray;
Mountains, on whose barren breast
The labouring clouds do often rest:
Meadows trim with daisies pied;5
Shallow brooks and rivers wide;
Towers and battlements it sees
Bosomed 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

(1) Not unseen-i. e. in the open air, in full view of others; not as the melancholy man (see "Il Penseroso," p. 312), walking

"Unseen

On the dry smooth-shaven green."

(2) State-this word is now nearly obsolete in the above sense; to begin his state, means to hold his court. Jonson in like manner (see pp. 173 and 311) bids Diana

"State in wonted manner keep."

(3) Tells his tale-This may mean-1st, Tells his tale of love; 2nd. Tells tales, or stories; 3rd. Tells his tale of sheep-i. e. counts them. The last is probably the true interpretation.

(4) Straight mine eye, &c.-The early morn is now over, forenoon has arrived, and the landscape is quite clear.

(5) Pied-many-coloured, variegated. (See note 1, p. 32.)

(6) Cynosure-the pole-star; the point at which many gaze.

(7) Corydon, Thyrsis, Phyllis, Thestylis-the names of farmers and rustics, borrowed from Theocritus, Virgil, and other writers of pastorals.

Of herbs, and other country messes,
Which the neat-handed Phyllis dresses;
And then in haste her bower1 she leaves
With Thestylis to bind the sheaves;
Or, if the earlier season lead,
To the tanned 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 chequered shade;
And young and old come forth to play
On a sunshine holiday,

Till the livelong daylight fail;
Then to the spicy nut-brown ale,
With stories told of many a feat,
How faery Mab the junkets eat;
She was pinched, and pulled, she said,
And he,6 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 had threshed the corn,
That ten day-labourers could not end;
Then lies him down the lubber7 fiend,
And, stretched out all the chimney's length,
Basks at the fire his hairy strength;
And cropful out of doors he flings
Ere the first cock his matin rings.
Thus done the tales, to bed they creep,
By whispering winds soon lulled asleep.

(1) Bower-The words bower here, and din ("the cock, with lively din") in a previous line, seem by their unexpectedness, and, strictly speaking, inappropriateness, to be intended to vary and enliven the style. A bower is strictly a lady's apartment or chamber.

(2) Rebeck-an ancient kind of fiddle.

(3) Dancing-This suggests the after part of the day, perhaps afternoon and evening.

(4) Faery Mab-See p. 285.

(5) She, he-persons who tell the stories to the company.

(6) And he, &c.-i. e. and he, one of the men, tells how at one time he was led astray by Will-o'-the-Wisp; and how, another time, Puck, or Robin Goodfellow, sweated to earn, &c.

(7) Lubber-lazy; here, perhaps, tired.

Towered cities please us then,1
And the busy hum of men,

3

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 sock5 be on,
Or sweetest Shakspere, 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 melting 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,

(1) Then-i. e. says Mr. Warton, "at night," and adds, "then is in this line a repetition of the first then- then to the spicy,' &c." In referring then, however, to night at all, we are met by the difficulty that the passage that follows seems to describe a tournament, which of course would not be held in a nocturnal assembly. If we consider then in this line as a correlative of then fourteen lines below, like the Latin tunc-tunc, we may interpret them both sometimes, and refer them to entirely different views of the subject. After all, the solution is difficult to find. (2) Weeds of peace-splendid dresses. "Weeds" in this sense still remains in

the expression "widow's weeds."

(3) Triumphs-i. e. "Shows, such as masks, revels," &c.-Warton. The word is used in the classical sense-triumphus meant, originally, a grand procession or pageant.

(4) Whom all commend-i. e. the Queen of Beauty, the lady who presided at the tournament.

(5) Sock-the shoe worn by the Roman comedians; here put for comedy itself. (6) Bout-a fold or twist.

(7) The melting voice, &c.-i. e. “As the voice of the singer runs through the manifold mazes or intricacies of sound, all the chains are untwisted which imprison and entangle the hidden soul, the essence, or perfection, of harmony."- Warton.