Come, pensive Nun, devout and pure,
Sober, stedfast, and demure,
All in a robe of darkest grain,
Flowing with majestic train,
And sable stole of cyprus lawn,
Over thy decent shoulders drawn.
Come, but keep thy wonted state,
With even step, and musing gait ;
And looks commèrcing with the skies,
Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes :
There, held in holy passion still,
Forget thyself to marble, till

With a sad leaden downward cast
Thou fix them on the earth as fast.

And join with thee calm Peace, and Quiet,
Spare Fast, that oft with gods doth diet,

And hears the Muses in a ring

Aye round about Jove's altar sing:
And add to these retirèd Leisure,

1

That in trim gardens takes his pleasure:
But first, and chiefest, with thee bring,
Him that yon soars on golden wing,
Guiding the fiery-wheeled throne,
The cherub Contemplatiön ;
And the mute Silence hist along,
'Less Philomel will deign a song,
In her sweetest saddest plight,
Smoothing the rugged brow of night,
While Cynthia checks her dragon yoke,
Gently o'er th' accustomed oak :

Sweet bird, that shunn'st the noise of folly
Most musical, most melancholy!

Thee, chauntress, oft, the woods among, I woo, to hear thy even-song;

And, missing thee, I walk unseen

1 Cp. Ezekiel x., and "Paradise Lost," VI. 750-59.

On the dry smooth-shaven green,
To behold the wand'ring moon,
Riding near her highest noon,
Like one that had been led astray

Through the heav'n's wide pathless way ;
And oft, as if her head she bowed,
Stooping through a fleecy cloud.
Oft, on a plat of rising ground,
I hear the far-off curfeu sound,
Over some wide-watered shore,
Swinging slow with sullen 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 resort 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 seen in some high lonely tow'r,
Where I may oft out-watch the Bear,1
With thrice-great Hermes,2 or unsphere
The spirit of Plato,3 to unfold

What worlds or what vast regions hold
Th' immortal mind that hath forsook
Her mansion in this fleshly nook:
And of those demons that are found
In fire, air, flood, or under ground,
Whose power hath a true consent
With planet, or with element.

"As the Bear never sets, this implies that the student sits up till daybreak, when all stars disappear " (Keightley).

The fabled Egyptian king, whom, on account of his universal knowledge and skill, the Greeks called "Trismegistus," or Thricegreat.

To draw the spirit of Plato down from his heavenly sphere.

Sometime let gorgeous Tragedy

In sceptred pall come sweeping by,
Presenting Thebes,1 or Pelops' line,2
Or the tale of Troy divine ;

.3

Or what (though rare) of later age
Ennobled hath the buskined stage.

But, O sad Virgin, that thy pow'r
Might raise Musæüs 5 from his bow'r !
Or bid the soul of Orpheus sing
Such notes as, warbled to the string,
Drew iron tears down Pluto's cheek,

And made Hell grant what Love did seek!"
Or call up him that left half-told
The story of Cambuscan bold,?
Of Camball, and of Algarsife,
And who had Canacè to wife,

That owned the virtuous ring and glass;
And of the wond'rous horse of brass
On which the Tartar king did ride :
And if aught else great bards beside 8
In sage and solemn tunes have sung,
Of turneys, and of trophies hung,
Of forests, and enchantments drear,
Where more is meant than meets the ear!
Thus, Night, oft see me in thy pale career
Till civil-suited Morn appear;

Not tricked and frounced as she was wont
With the Attic boy9 to hunt,

Thebes, in Boeotia, the scene of Eschylus' "Seven against Thebes," Sophocles' Edipus the King" and "Antigone," and Euripides'"Baccha."

* Referring to the three tragedies (trilogy) of Eschylus on the murder of Agamemnon, a descendant of Pelops.

• Referring to various episodes in the history of the Siege of Troy, treated by the Greek dramatists. See note to "L'Allegro," p. 50. A mythical Greek bard, said to have been the son of Orpheus. See" L'Allegro," p. 50.

? The reference is to Chaucer's fragmentary "Squire's Tale.”

As, e.g., Ariosto, Tasso, and Spenser.

' Cephalus, loved by Eos (Aurora), the Dawn.

But kercheft in a comely cloud,
While rocking winds are piping loud,
Or ushered with a shower still,
When the gust hath blown his fill,
Ending on the rustling leaves,
With minute drops from off the eaves.
And, when the sun begins to fling
His flaring beams, me, Goddess, bring
To arched walks of twilight groves,
And shadows brown, that Sylvan loves,
Of pine, or monumental oak,

Where the rude axe, with heaved stroke,
Was never heard the Nymphs to daunt,
Or fright them from their hallowed haunt.
There in close covert by some brook,
Where no profaner eye may look,
Hide me from Day's garish eye,
While the bee with honied thigh,
That at her flow'ry work doth sing,
And the waters murmuring,
With such consort as they keep,
Entice the dewy-feathered Sleep ;
And let some strange mysterious Dream
Wave at his wings in aery stream
Of lively portraiture displayed,
Softly on my eye-lids laid.

And, as I wake, sweet music breathe
Above, about or underneath,

Sent by some sp'rit to mortals good,
Or th' unseen Genius of the wood.
But let my due feet never fail
To walk the studious cloister's pale,
And love the high-embowèd roof,
With antic pillars massy proof,
And storied windows richly dight,
Casting a dim religious light:

There let the pealing organ blow,
To the full-voiced quire below,
In service high and anthems clear,

As may with sweetness, through mine ear,
Dissolve me into ecstasies,

And bring all Heav'n before mine eyes.
And may at last my weary age
Find out the peaceful hermitage,
The hairy gown and mossy cell,
Where I may sit and rightly spell
Of ev'ry star that heav'n doth show,
And ev'ry herb that sips the dew;
Till old experience do attain
To something like prophetic strain.

These pleasures, Melancholy, give,
And I with thee will choose to live.

It will be noticed as curious that in both the foregoing poems Milton's mind turns naturally to the drama-to Shakespeare and Jonson in the one case, and to the great masters of Attic tragedy in the other. That at this time he was deeply interested in dramatic literature is further attested by the fact that his next production was in dramatic form-not indeed in the form of the regular stage-play, but in that of the private representation, combining dialogue, action, music, and pageantry, which was called the Masque. In his "Arcades: Part of an Entertainment presented to the Countess Dowager of Derby by some Noble Persons of her Family," he had already tried his hand in work of this kind. But this was slight and experimental. Shortly afterward came the masterpiece which