To live with her, and live with thee,
In unreproved1 pleasures free:
To hear the lark begin his flight,
And singing startle the dull night,
From his watch-tower in the skies,
Till the dappled2 dawn doth rise;
Then to come,3 in spite of sorrow,
And at my window bid good-morrow,
Through the sweet-brier, 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 :
Sometime walking, not unseen,6
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 furrowed land,
And the milk-maid singeth blithe,
And the mower whets his scythe,

1 Unreproved--i. e. not subject to reproof, blameless, innocent.

2 Dappled-See note 5, p. 32.

3

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 at the time might oppress me.

4

Eglantine-properly, the sweet-brier; here the honeysuckle.

5 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.

6 Not unseen-i. e. in the open air, in full view of others; not as the melancholy man, (see "Il Penseroso," p. 313,) walking

Unseen

On the dry smooth-shaven green.

And every shepherd tells his tale,1
Under the hawthorn in the dale.

Straight mine eye2 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; 3
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 Corydon5 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 bower6 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;

1 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.

2 Straight mine eye, &c.—The early morn is now over, forenoon has arrived, and the landscape is quite clear.

3 Pied-many-coloured, variegated. See note 1, p. 32.

4

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

5 Corydon, Thyrsis, Phyllis, Thestylis-the names of farmers and rustics.

6 Bower-The words bower here, and din in a previous line, seem by their unexpectedness, and, strictly speaking, inappropriateness, to be intended to heighten and enliven the style.

7 Rebeck-an ancient kind of fiddle.

8 Dancing-This denotes the after part of the day, perhaps afternoon and evening.

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 Mab1 the junkets eat;
She was pinched, and pulled, she said,
And he,3 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 lubber+ 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.
Towered cities please us then,5
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.8

1 Faery Mab-See p. 285.

2 She, he-persons who tell the stories to the company.

3 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. 4 Lubber-lazy; here perhaps, tired.

5 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 times 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.

6 Weeds of peace-splendid dresses. "Weeds" in this sense still remains in the expression "widow's weeds."

7

Triumphs-i. e. "Shows, such as masks, revels, &c." Warton.

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

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 sock1 be on,
Or sweetest Shakespeare, 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 bout2
Of linked sweetness long drawn out,
With wanton heed, and giddy cunning,
The melting voice3 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 heaped Elysian flowers, and hear

Such strains as would have won the ear

Of Pluto, to have quite set free

His half-regained Eurydice.

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

IL PENSERO SO.*

HENCE, vain deluding joys,

The brood of Folly, without father bred!

1 Sock-the shoe worn by the Roman comedians; here put for comedy itself. 2 Bout-a fold or twist.

3 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.

4 Il Penseroso-" The thoughtful, melancholy man." Both this poem and the preceding, were written before Milton was thirty years of age. It is not difficult to perceive, that "Il Penseroso" more especially embodies the poet's own experience and sympathies. Beautiful though "L'Allegro" is, "Il Penser oso"

How little you bestead,1

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 sister3 might beseem;
Or that starred 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-haired 5 Vesta, long of yore,
To solitary Saturn bore;

is still more exquisitely refined and graceful. But both may be considered as masterpieces of the poetic art, and every attempt that has been made to imitate them, has only served by the contrast to enhance the superlative excellence and beauty of the originals. The riches of the present poem are glanced at in the following synopsis. "The portrait of contemplation;" says Dr. Symmons, "the address to Philomel; the image of the moon, wandering through heaven's pathless way; the slow swinging of the curfew over some wide-watered shore; the flaming of the night-lamp in some lonely tower; the unsphering of the spirit of Plato to disclose the residence of the unbodied soul; the arched walks of twilight groves; the mysterious dream by the murmuring waters; the sweet music of the friendly spirit of the wood; the pale and studious cloister; the religious light thrown through the storied windows; the pealing organ; and finally, the peaceful hermitage, form together such a mass of poetic imagery as was never before crowded into an equal space: the impression made by it on the imagination is to be felt, and not explained." Bestead-avail. 2 Pensioners-attendants, retinue.

3 Memnon's sister-i. e. "An Ethiopian princess, or sable beauty. This lady is a creation of the poet:" Dunster.

4 Starred Ethiop queen-Cassiope or Cassiopea, who pretended to vie with the Nereids in beauty;-starred because she was transformed into the constellation which bears her name.

5 Thee, bright-haired, &c.—i. e. says Warton, "Melancholy is the daughter of Genius, which is typified by the bright-haired goddess of the eternal fire. Saturn, the father, is the God of saturnine dispositions, of pensive and gloomy minds."