Of wit, or arms, while both contend
To win her grace, whom all commend.
There let Hymen oft appear

In faffron robe, with taper clear,
And pomp, and feaft, and revelry,
With mask and antique pageantry,
Such fights as youthful poets dream,
On fummer-eves by haunted ftream.
Then to the well-trod ftage anon,
If Johnfon's learned fock be on,
Or sweetest Shakspeare, fancy's child,
Warble his native wood-notes wild.
And ever against eating cares
Lap me in foft Lydian airs,
Married to immortal verfe,

Such as the meeting foul 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 foul of harmony;

That Orpheus' felf may heave his head
From golden flumber on a bed

Of heapt Elysian flowers, and hear

Such ftrains as would have won the ear

Of Pluto, to have quite fet free

His half-regain'd Eurydice.

These delights if thou canft give,

Mirth, with thee I mean to live.

CHAPTER XVII.

IL PENSEROSO.

HENCE vain deluding joys,

MILTON,

The brood of folly, without father bred!

Or fill the fixed mind with all your toys!
Dwell in fome idle brain,

And fancies fond with gaudy fhapes poffefs,
As thick and numberless.

As the gay motes that people the fun-beams, Or likeft hovering dreams,

The fickle penfioners of Morpheus' train." But hail, thou goddefs, fage and holy! Hail, divineft melancholy !:

Whofe faintly vifage is too bright

To hit the fenfe of human fight,

And therefore to our weaker view,
O'erlaid with black, ftaid wifdoin's hue;
Black, but fuch as in efteem,

Prince Memnon's fifter might befeem,
Or that ftarr'd Ethiope queen that trove
To fet her beauty's praife above

The fea-nymphs, and their powers offended:
Yet thou art higher far defcended ;

Thee, bright hair'd Vefta, long of yore,

To folitary Saturn bore;

His daughter the (in Saturn's reign
Such mixture was not held a ftain)
Oft in glimmering bowers, and glades
He met her, and in fecret shades
Of woody Ida's inmost grove,
While yet there was no fear of Jove.
Come, penfive nun, devout and pure,
Sober, ftedfast, and demure,

All in a robe of darkest grain,
Flowing with majestic train,
And fable ftole of cyprefs lawn,
Over thy decent fhoulders drawn,

Come, but keep thy wonted ftate,

With even step and musing gate,
And looks commercing with the skies,
Thy rapt foul fitting in thine eyes;
There, held in holy paffion ftill,
Forget thyfelf to marble, till

With a fad leaden downward cast,

Thou fix them on the earth as faft:

And join with thee, calm peace, and quiet,
Spare faft, that oft with gods doth diet,
And hear the Mufes in a ring

Aye round about Jove's altar fing;
And add to thefe retired leisure,
That in trim gardens take his pleasure ;
But firft and chiefeft, with thee bring
Him that yon foars on golden wing,
Guiding the fiery wheeled throne,
The cherub contemplation;
And the mute filence hift along,
'Lefs Philomel will deign a fong,
In her sweeteft, faddeft plight,
Smoothing the rugged brow of night,
While Cynthia checks her dragon yoke,

Gently o'er the accuftom'd oak;

Sweet bird, that fhunn'ft the noife of folly,

Moft musical, moft melancholy!

Thee, chauntrefs, oft the woods among,
I woo to hear thy evening fong;
And miffing thee, I walk unfeen
On the dry smooth-fhaven green,
To behold the wand'ring moon,
Riding near her highest noon,
Like one that had been led astray,
Through the heaven's wide pathlefs way;

And oft as if her head fhe bow'd
Stooping through a fleecy cloud.

Oft on a plat of rifing ground
I hear the far-off curfew found,
Over fome wide-water'd fhore,
Swinging flow with fullen roar.
Or if the air will not permit,
Some still removed place will fit,
Where glowing embers through the room,
Teach light to counterfeit a gloom,

Far from all refort of mirth,
Save the cricket on the hearth,
Or the bellman's drowsy charm,
To bless the doors from nightly harm.
Or let my lamp at midnight hour,
Be feen in fome high lonely tow'r,
Where I may oft out-watch the bear,
With thrice great Hermes, or unsphere
The spirit of Plato, to unfold
What worlds, or what vaft regions hold
The immortal mind that hath forfook
Her mansion in this fleshly nook:
And of thefe dæmons that are found
In fire, air, flood, or under ground,
Whose power hath a true confent
With planet, or with element.

Sometimes let gorgeous tragedy
In fcepter'd pall come fweeping by,
Prefenting Thebes, or Pelops' line,
Or the tale of Troy divine,

Or what (though rare) of later age,
Ennobled hath the buskin'd stage.

But, O fad virgin! that thy power
Might raife Mufæus from his bower,
Or bid the foul of Orpheus fing
Such notes as warbled to the ftring,

Drew iron tears down Pluto's cheek,

And made hell grant what love did feek;
Or call up him that left half-told
The ftory of Cambufcan bold,
Of Camball, and of Algarfife,
And who had Canace to wife,

That own'd the virtuous ring and glafs,
And of the wond'rous horfe of brass,
On which the Tartar king did ride ;
And if aught elfe great bards befide
In fage and folemn tunes have fung,
Of tourneys and of trophies hung,
Of forefts, and enchantments drear,
Where more is meant than meets the ear.
Thus night oft fee me in thy pale career,
Till civil fuited morn appear,

Not trick'd and frounc'd as she was won't
With the Attic boy to hunt,

But kerchief'd in a comely cloud,
While rocking winds are piping loud,

Or ufher'd with a fhower ftill,

When the guft hath blown his fill,
Ending on the rustling leaves,

With minute-drops from off the caves.
And when the fun begins to fling.
His flaring beams, me, goddefs, bring
To arched walks of twilight groves,
And fhadows brown that Sylvan loves
Of pine or monumental cak,

Where the rude ax with heaved ftroke
Was never heard the nymphs to daunt,
Or fright them from their hallow'd haunt.
There in clofe covert by fome brook,
Where no profaner eye may look,
Hide me from day's garth eye,
While the bee with honey'd thigh,