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ODES.

UPON THE CIRCUMCISION.*

YE flaming Powers, and winged Warriours bright,
That erst with musick, and triumphant song,
First heard by happy watchful shepherds' ear,
So sweetly sung your joy the clouds along
Through the soft silence of the listening night;
Now mourn; and, if sad share with us to bear
Your fiery essence can distil no tear,
Burn in your sighs, and borrow

Seas wept from our deep sorrow:

He, who with all Heaven's heraldry whilere
Enter'd the world, now bleeds to give us ease:
Alas, how soon our sin

Sore doth begin

His infancy to seize!

O more exceeding love, or law more just?
Just law indeed, but more exceeding love!

For we, by rightful doom remediless,

Were lost in death, till he that dwelt above

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High throned in secret bliss, for us frail dust
Emptied his glory, ev'n to nakedness;

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And that great covenant which we still transgress
Entirely satisfied;

And the full wrath beside

Of vengeful justice bore for our excess;

And seals obedience first, with wounding smart,

This day; but, O! ere long,

Huge pangs and strong

Will pierce more near his heart.

ON THE DEATH OF A FAIR INFANT, DYING OF A COUGH.†

I.

O FAIREST flower, no sooner blown but blasted.
Soft silken primrose fading timelessly,

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The "Circumcision" is better than the "Passion," and has two or three Miltorio nes.-BRYDGES.

†The "Elegy on the Death of a Fair Infant" is praised by Warton, and well characterized in his last note upon it; but it has more of research and laboured fancy than of feeling, and is not a general favourite.-BRYDGES. It was written at the age of seventeen.

20. Emptied his glory. An expression | r putation,”—but, as it is in the original, taken from Phil. ii. 7, but not as in our | (kavrov ekɛvwσɛ,) “He emptied himself.” translation,-"He made himself of no

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-NEWTON.

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Summer's chief honour, if thou hadst out-lasted
Bleak Winter's force that made thy blossom dry;
For he, being amorous on that lovely dye

That did thy cheek envermeil, thought to kiss,
But kill'd, alas! and then bewail'd his fatal bliss.

II.

For since grim Aquilo, his charioteer,

By boisterous rape the Athenian damsel got,
He thought it touch'd his deity full near,
If likewise he some fair one wedded not,
Thereby to wipe away the infamous blot

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Of long uncoupled bed and childless eld,
Which, 'mongst the wanton gods, a foul reproach was held.

III.

So, mounting up in icy-pearled car,

Through middle empire of the freezing air
He wander'd long, till thee he spied from far;
There ended was his quest, there ceased his care.
Down he descended from his snow-soft chair;

But, all unwares, with his cold-kind embrace
Unhous'd thy virgin soul from her fair biding-place.

IV.

Yet art thou not inglorious in thy fate;
For so Apollo, with unweeting hand,
Whilom did slay his dearly-loved mate,
Young Hyacinth, born on Eurotas' strand,

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Young Hyacinth, the pride of Spartan land;
But then transform'd him to a purple flower:

Alack, that so to change thee Winter had no power!

V.

Yet can I not persuade me thou art dead,

Or that thy corse corrupts in earth's dark womb,
Or that thy beauties lie in wormy bed,

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Hid from the world in a low-delved tomb.

Could Heaven for pity thee so strictly doom?
O, no! for something in thy face did shine
Above mortality, that show'd thou wast divine.

8. Aquilo, or Boreas, the North wind, | enamoured of Orithyia, the daughter of Erechtheus, King of Athens.

12. Infamous, the common accent in old English poetry.

23. For so Apollo, &c. From these lines one would suspect, although it does not immediately follow, that a boy was the subject of the Ode; but in the last stanza the poet says expressly,

Then thou, the mother of so sweet a child,
Her false-imagined loss cease to lament.

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Yet, in the eighth stanza, the person la mented is alternately supposed to have been sent down to earth in the shape of two divinities, one of whom is styled a "just maid," and the other a "sweetsmiling youth." But the child was cer tainly a niece, a daughter of Milton's sister Philips.

40. Were, instead of are, for rhyme.47. Earth's sons, the giants.-50. Maid, Justice.-54. Youth, Mercy.

67. To turn swift-rushing, &c. Among

VI.

Resolve me then, O soul most surely blest,
(If so it be that thou these plaints dost hear,)
Tell me, bright spirit, where'er thou hoverest;
Whether above that high first-moving sphere,
Or in the Elysian fields, (if such there were,)

O, say me true, if thou wert mortal wight,
And why from us so quickly thou didst take thy flight?

VII.

Wert thou some star, which from the ruin'd roof
Of shak'd Olympus by mischance didst fall;
Which careful Jove in Nature's true behoof
Took up, and in fit place did reinstall?
Or did of late Earth's sons besiege the wall

Of sheeny Heaven, and thou, some goddess fled,
Amongst us here below to hide thy nectar'd head?

VIII

Or wert thou that just Maid, who once before
Forsook the hated earth, O, tell me sooth,
And cam'st again to visit us once more?

Or wert thou that sweet-smiling youth?

Or that crown'd matron sage, white-robed Truth?
Or any other of that heavenly brood,

Let down in cloudy throne to do the world some good?

IX.

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Or wert thou of the golden-winged host,
Who, having clad thyself in human weed,

To earth from thy prefixed seat didst post,

And after short abode fly back with speed,

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As if to show what creatures heaven doth breed;
Thereby to set the hearts of men on fire

To scorn the sordid world, and unto heaven aspire?

X.

But, O! why didst thou not stay here below
To bless us with thy Heaven-loved innocence,
To slake his wrath whom sin hath made our foe,
To turn swift-rushing black Perdition hence,
Or drive away the slaughtering Pestilence,

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pression, and versification; even in the conceits, which are many, we perceive strong and peculiar marks of genius. I think Milton has here given a very remarkable specimen of his ability to succeed in the Spenserian stanza. He moves with great ease and address amidst the embarrassment of a frequent return of rhyme.-T. WARTON.

To stand 'twixt us and our deserved smart?

But thou canst best perform that office where thou art.

XI.

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Then thou, the mother of so sweet a child,
Her false-imagined loss cease to lament,
And wisely learn to curb thy sorrows wild:
Think what a present thou to God hast sent,
And render him with patience what he lent.
This, if thou do, he will an offspring give,
That, till the world's last end, shall make thy name to live.

ON TIME.*

FLY, envious Time, till thou run out thy race;
Call on the lazy leaden-stepping hours,

Whose speed is but the heavy plummet's pace;
And glut thyself with what thy womb devours,
Which is no more than what is false and vain,
And merely mortal dross;

So little is our loss,

So little is thy gain!

For when as each thing bad thou hast entomb'd,
And last of all thy greedy self consumed,

Then long Eternity shall greet our bliss

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With an individual kiss ;

And Joy shall overtake us as a flood;

When every thing that is sincerely good

And perfectly divine,

About the supreme throne

With Truth, and Peace, and Love, shall ever shine

Of him, to whose happy-making sight alone

When once our heavenly-guided soul shall climb:

Then, all this earthy grossness quit,

Attired with stars, we shall for ever sit,

Triumphing over Death, and Chance, and thee, O Time.

AT A SOLEMN MUSICK.†

BLEST pair of Sirens, pledges of Heaven's joy;
Sphere-born harmonious sisters, Voice and Verse;

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* In Milton's_manuscript, written with his own hand, the title is,-"On Time. To be set on a clock-case.”

† The “Ode at a Solemn Musick” is a short prelude to the strain of genius which produced "Paradise Lost." Warton says, that perhaps there are no finer lines in Milton than one long passage which he cites, (17-24.) I must say that this is going a little too far. That they are very fine I admit; but the sublime philosophy, to which he alludes as their prototype, must not be put in comparison with the fountains of "Paradise Lost." So far they are exceedingly curious, that they show how early the poet had constructed in his own mind the language of his divine imagery, and how rich and vigorous his style was, almost in his boyhood.-BRYDGES.

12. Individual: Eternal, inseparable.

14. Sincerely: Purely, perfectly.

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Wed your divine sounds, and mix'd power employ
Dead things with inbreathed sense able to pierce;
And to our high-raised phantasy present
That undisturbed song or pure concent,
Aye sung before the sapphire-colour'd throne
To him that sits thereon,

With saintly shout, and solemn jubilee ;
Where the bright Seraphim, in burning row,
Their loud uplifted angel trumpets blow;
And the cherubic host, in thousand quires,
Touch their immortal harps`of golden wires,

With those just spirits that wear victorious palms,
Hymns devout and holy psalms

Singing everlastingly:

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That we on earth, with undiscording, voice,
May rightly answer that melodious noise;
As once we did, till disproportion'd sin

Jarr'd against Nature's chime, and with harsh din.
Broke the fair musick that all creatures made

To their great Lord, whose love their motion sway'd
In perfect diapason, whilst they stood

In first obedience, and their state of good.

O, may we soon again renew that song,

And keep in tune with Heaven, till God ere long
To his celestial consort us unite,

To live with him, and sing in endless morn of light!

AN EPITAPH ON THE MARCHIONESS OF

WINCHESTER.*

THIS rich marble doth inter
The honour'd wife of Winchester,

A viscount's daughter, an earl's heir,
Besides what her virtues fair

Added to her noble birth,

More than she could own from earth.
Summers three times eight save one
She had told; alas! too soon,

After so short time of breath,

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To house with darkness and with death.

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* In Howell's entertaining Letters, there is one to this lady,-the Lady Jane Savage, Marchioness of Winchester,-dated March 15, 1626. He says, he assisted her in learning Spanish; and that Nature and the Graces exhausted all their treasure and skill in "framing this exact model of female perfection."

6. The undisturbed song of pure concent is the diapason of the music of the spheres, to which, in Plato's system, God himself listens.-T. WARTON. See note on line 62 of "Arcades," p. 451.

17. That we on earth, &c. Perhaps there are no finer lines in Milton, less obscured by conceit, less embarrassed by

affected expressions, and less weakened by pompous epithets: and in this perspicuous and simple style are conveyed scine of the noblest ideas of a most sublime philosophy, heightened by metaphors and allusions suitable to the sub ject.-T. WARTON.

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