ning sends

Up from the city to these quiet shades;
A blended murmur sweetly harmonizing
With flowing fountains, feathered minstrelsy,
And voices from the hills.

Tam. The sounds I mean,

Tam. Our Prophet teaches so, till man rebelled.

[Heaven Had. Mighty rebellion! Had he 'leagured With beings powerful, numberless, and dread

ful,

Strong as the enginery that rocks the world

From unseen fingers.

Had. When?

Tam. Now, as thou camest.

Had. "Tis but thy fancy, wrought
To ecstasy; or else thy grandsire's harp
Resounding from his tower at eventide.
I've lingered to enjoy its solemn tones,
Till the broad moon, that rose o'er Olivet,
Stood listening in the zenith; yea, have
deemed

Viols and heavenly voices answered him.
Tam. But these-

Had. Were we in Syria, I might say
The Naiad of the fount, or some sweet Nymph,
The goddess of these shades, rejoiced in thee,
And gave thee salutations; but I fear
Judah would call me infidel to Moses.

Tam. How like my fancy! When these
strains precede

Thy steps, as oft they do, I love to think
Some gentle being who delights in us
Is hovering near, and warns me of thy coming;
But they are dirge-like.

Had. Youthful fantasy,

Attuned to sadness, makes them seem so, lady.
So evening's charming voices, welcomed ever,
As signs of rest and peace;-the watchman's
call,

The closing gates, the Levite's mellow trump
Announcing the returning moon, the pipe
Of swains, the bleat, the bark, the housing-
Send melancholy to a drooping soul. [bell,

Tam. But how delicious are the pensive
dreams

That steal upon the fancy at their call!

Had. Delicious to behold the world at rest. Meek labor wipes his brow, and intermits The curse, to clasp the younglings of his cot; Herdsmen, and shepherds, fold their flocks

and hark!

What merry strains they send from Olivet!
The jar of life is still; the city speaks
In gentle murmurs; voices chime with lutes
Waked in the streets and gardens; loving
pairs

Eye the red west in one another's arms;
And nature, breathing dew and fragrance,
yields,

A glimpse of happiness, which He, who formed
Earth and the stars, had power to make
eternal.
[proach the Friend
Tam. Ah! Hadad, meanest thou to re-
Who gave so much, because he gave not all?
Had. Perfect benevolence, methinks, had
willed

Unceasing happiness, and peace, and joy;
Filled the whole universe of human hearts

Of onset with annihilating bolts

Defensive vollied from the throne; this, this
Had been rebellion worthy of the name,
Worthy of punishment. But what did man?
Tasted an apple! and the fragile scene,
Eden, and innocence, and human bliss,
The nectar-flowing streams, life-giving fruits,
Celestial shades, and amaranthine flowers,
Vanish; and sorrow, toil, and pain, and death,
Cleave to him by an everlasting curse.

Tam. Ah! talk not thus.

Had. Is this benevolence ?Nay, loveliest, these things sometimes trouble

me;

For I was tutored in a brighter faith.
Our Syrians deem each lucid fount, and stream,
Forest, and mountain, glade, and bosky dell,
Peopled with kind divinities, the friends
Of man, a spiritual race allied

To him by many sympathies, who seek
His happiness, inspire him with gay thoughts,
Cool with their waves, and fan him with their
O'er them, the Spirit of the Universe, [airs.
Or Soul of Nature, circumfuses all
With mild, benevolent, and sun-like radiance;
Pervading, warming, vivifying earth,
As spirit does the body, till green herbs,
And beauteous flowers, and branchy cedars
rise;
[caves,
And shooting stellar influence through her
Whence minerals and gems imbibe their lustre.
Tam. Dreams, Hadad, empty dreams.
Had. These deities

The earthquake follows, whose tempestuous breath

Divides the sea, whose anger never dies,
Never remits, but everlasting burns,
Burns unextinguished in the deeps of Hell.
Jealous, implacable-

Tam. Peace! impious! peace!
Had. Ha! says not Moses so?
The Lord is jealous.

Tam. Jealous of our faith,

Our love, our true obedience, justly his;
And a poor recompense for all his favors.
Implacable he is not; contrite man
Ne'er found him so.

Had. But others have,

If oracles be true.

Tam. Little we know

Of them; and nothing of their dire offence. Had. I meant not to displease, love; but my soul

Beloved princess. Why distrust my faith? Tam. Thou know'st, alas, my weakness; but remember,

I never, never will be thine, although
The feast, the blessing, and the song were past,
Though Absalom and David called me bride,
Till sure thou own'st, with truth, and love
The Lord Jehovah.
[sincere,

Had. Leave me not-Hear, hear

I do believe-I know that Being lives [know Whom you adore. Ah! stay-by proofs I

Morning ushered by a murdered victim,
Whose wasting members reek upon the air,
Polluting the pure firmament; the shades
Of evening scent of death; almost, the shrine
O'ershadowed by the holy Cherubim ;
And where the clotted current from the altar
Mixes with Kedron, all its waves are gore.
Nay, nay, I grieve thee-'tis not for myself,
But that I fear these gloomy things oppress
VOL. VI. Nos. 87 & 88.

Tam. Prince, unclasp my hand. [Exit.
Had. Untwine thy fetters if thou canst.-
How sweet

To watch the struggling softness! It allays
The beating tempest of my thoughts, and flows
Like the nepenthe of elysium through me.
How exquisite! Like subtlest essences,
She fills the spirit! How the girdle clips
Her taper waist with its resplendent clasp!
Her bosom's silvery-swelling network yields
Ravishing glimpses, like sweet shade and
Checkering Astarte's statue- [moonshire

K

HEN

Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born, In Stygian cave forlorn, [unholy; 'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights Find out some uncouth cell, [wings, Where brooding darkness spreads his jealous And the night-raven sings;

There, under ebon shades, and low-brow'd rocks,

As ragged as thy locks,

In dark Cimmerian desert 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 honor 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-tow'r in the skies,
Till the dapple dawn doth rise;
Then to come, 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 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 ploughman near at hand
Whistles o'er the furrow'd land,
And the milk-maid singing blithe,
And the mower whets his sithe,

And ev'ry shepherd tells his tale
Under the hawthorn in the dale.

Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures
Whilst the landscape 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.
Tow'rs 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 bow'r 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 holiday.

Till the live-long day-light 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 lanthorn 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 lubber 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.
Tow'red 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 Shakspeare, Fancy's child,
Warble his native wood-notes wild.
And ever against eating cares,
Lap me in soft Lydian airs,
Married to inmortal 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 flowers, 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.

§ 2. Satan summons the fallen Angels. MILTON.

Is this the region, this the soil, the clime, Said then the lost Arch-angel, this the seat That we must change for Heav'n, this mourn ful gloom

For that celestial light? Be it so, since he Who now is Sov'reign, can dispose and bid What shall be right farthest from him is best, Whom reason hath equall'd, force hath made

supreme

Above his equals. Farewell, happy fields,
Where joy for ever dwells: Hail Horrors, hail
Infernal World, and thou profoundest Hell
Receive thy new possessor; one who brings
A mind not to be chang'd by place or time.
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heav'n of Hell, a hell of Heav'n.
What matter where, if I be still the same,
And what I should be, all but less than he
Whom thunder hath made greater? Here at
least

We shall be free; th' Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:
Here we may reign secure, and, in my choice,
To reign is worth ambition though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heav'n.
But wherefore let we then our faithful friends,
Th' associates and copartners of our loss,
Lie thus astonish'd on th' oblivious pool,
And call them not to share with us their part
In this unhappy mansion, or once more,
With rallied arms, to try what may be yet
Regain'd in Heav'n, or what more lost in

So Satan spake, and him Beelzebub [Hell? Thus answer'd: Leader of those armies bright, Which but the Omnipotent none could have [pledge

foil'd,

If once they hear that voice, their liveliest
Of hope in fears and dangers, heard so oft
In worst extremes, and on the perilous edge