To many a youth, and many a maid,
Dancing in the chequered shade ;
And young and old come forth to play
On a sun-shine holy-day,
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 pinched, and pulled, she said ;
And he, by friar's lantern led, 1
Tells how the drudging Goblin 2 swet,
To earn his cream-bowl duly set,
When in one night, ere glimpse of morn,
His shad’wy flail hath threshed the corn,
That ten day-lab'rers could not end;
Then lies him down the lubbar fiend,
And, stretched 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 lulled asleep.
Towered 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 3 oft appear
In saffron robe, with taper clear,
Jack o' Lantern, or Will o' the Wisp, a familiar figure in popular superstition.
Robin Goodfellow, Shakespeare's Puck. Naturally mischievous, he could still be induced to perform various domestic tasks by a small present, such as a bowl of cream. The god of marriage.
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 Shakspeare, 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 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 heaped Elysian flow'rs, and hear
Such strains as would have won the ear
Of Pluto, to have quite set free
His half-regained Eurydicè.3
These delights if thou canst give,
Mirth, with thee I mean to live.
With the enchanting melody of this poem in our ears, and with its main outlines well in mind, we pass on at once to its companion piece.
1 The low shoe worn by actors in comedy, as the high-heeled buskin, or "cothurnus," was used by actors in tragedy.
Lydian music was proverbially tender and voluptuous.
The story of Orpheus and Eurydice will be found in any classical dictionary.
IL PENSEROSO
Hence, vain deluding Joys,
The brood of Folly without father bred !
How little you bestead,
Or fill the fixèd 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 1 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 2 sister might beseem,
Or that starred Ethiop queen 3 that strove
To set her beauty's praise above
The Sea-Nymphs', and their pow'rs offended :
Yet thou art higher far descended :
Thee, bright-haired Vesta, long of yore,
The solitary Saturn bore ;
His daughter she,—in Saturn's reign,
Such mixture was not held a stain— ;
Oft in glimmering bow'rs and glades
He met her, and in secret shades
Of woody Ida's inmost grove,
Whilst yet there was no fear of Jove.
1 Attendants; cp. "Midsummer Night's Dream," ii. i.
A handsome Ethiopian prince, slain by Achilles. See "Odyssey,"
Cassiopeia, who challenged the Nereids to a trial of beauty, and was transformed into the constellation known by her name.
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 retired Leisure,
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 ; 1
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 removèd 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.
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