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 Shakespeare, 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

113. store of ladies, many ladies.
114. Rain influence. According to the
doctrine of astrology, the rays
or aspects flowing upon (Lat.
influere, to flow upon) men ex-
ercised a mysterious power over
their fortunes: hence the mod-

119. pomp, solemn procession.
120. mask, a masquerade.
124. If Jonson's learned sock: that is,
if one of Ben Jonson's comedies
be playing; sock, a low-heeled
shoe worn by comedians in
ancient times.

ern meaning of "influence." In 128.
the passage above, the word is
used in its original sense.

117. Hymen, the god of marriage.

Lydian airs. Of the three modes or styles of Greek music, the "Lydian" was the soft and voluptuous.

LITERARY ANALYSIS.-113. whose bright eyes, etc. Observe the splendor of the imagery. What is the figure of speech, and from what is it taken? (See note on "influence.")

124. Jonson's learned sock. Ben Jonson, a contemporary of Shakespeare, wrote tragedies as well as comedies. Can you tell why it is befitting in this poem to refer to him exclusively as a writer of comedies?-Contrast with the " gorgeous Tragedy" in Il Penseroso (line 88, etc., page 60, of this book).

125, 126. sweetest Shakespeare ... wood-notes wild. Do you think that "sweetest" and "warbling his native wood-notes," etc., are adequate expressions to apply to the greatest literary artist that the world has ever seen?

115

120

125

130

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 flowers, and hear
Such strains as would have won the ear

Of Pluto to have quite set free

His half-regained Eurydice.
These delights if thou canst give,
Mirth, with thee I mean to live.

131. bout, a bend or turn-here a musical passage.

133. wauton, sportive, flying free. In this line the adjective describes the appearance, the noun the reality.

137-142. Orpheus'... Euryd ́ice. Or

jects.

His wife, Eurydice, having died, he followed her into the infernal region, where the god Pluto was so moved by the music that Orpheus almost succeeded in carrying her back to earth.

pheus, son of Apollo, who, with 139. Elysian, pertaining to Elysium,

the music of his lyre, had the
power to move inanimate ob-

the abode of the blessed after death.

135

140

LITERARY ANALYSIS. -137-142. That Orpheus' self... Eurydice. What is the figure of speech? (See Def. 34.) It is in Milton's best style-rich, chaste, and classic.

127-144. Commit to memory this splendid passage.

NOTE ON THE VOCABULARY.-Ninety per cent. of the words in L'Allegro are of Anglo-Saxon origin-proper names being excluded and repetition of words counted.

II. IL PENSEROSO.

Hence, vain deluding joys,

The brood of Folly without father bred!
How little you bestead,*

Or fill the fixed 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 sunbeams,
Or likest hovering dreams,

The fickle pensioners 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

15

O'erlaid with black, staid Wisdom's hue-
Black, but such as in esteem

Prince Memnon's sister might beseem,

Or that starred Ethiop queen that strove

To set her beauty's praise above

The sea-nymphs, and their powers offended.

*

NOTES. 3. bestead, avail.

6. fond, foolish.

very lovely.-beseem, seem fit for.

10. pensioners, retinue, followers.-Mor- 19-21. that starred Ethiop queen, etc.

The allusion is to Cassiope'a, wife of Cepheus, King of Ethiopia. The usual story is that it was the beauty of her daughter Androm'eda that she declared to surpass that of the "seanymphs" (Nereides). Cassiopea, as also her daughter, was 'starred," that is, placed among the constellations after death.

also supposed to have been 21. their powers = their divinity.

'This is an "allusion" in the proper sense of the word-that is to say, it is an oblique, or indirect, reference. The word is often misapplied to direct reference or mention.

20

Come, pensive nun, devout and pure,
Sober, steadfast, and demure,*
All in a robe of darkest grain,'
Flowing with majestic train,
And sable stole of Cypres lawn,
Over thy decent* shoulders drawn.
Come, but keep thy wonted state,
With even step, and musing gait,
And looks commercing* 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 retiréd 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 Contemplation;
And the mute Silence hist along,

22. nun. The word is here used in- 27. decent, becoming (because cov

definitely to denote a pious re-
cluse.

23. demure, grave.

24. grain, a shade of purple.

26. stole, veil or hood; not the stola proper, or long robe, of the Roman matrons.-Cypres (= Cyprus) lawn was a thin transparent texture of fine linen.'

1

Cypres is defined in an old English dictionary as a "fine linen, crespé;" and from crespé (= curled, crisped) come our crape and crêpe.

'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 the accustomed oak:

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

Thee, chantress, oft, the woods among,

I woo, to hear thy even-song;

And, missing thee, I walk unseen
On the dry smooth-shaven green,
To behold the wandering moon
Riding near her highest noon,
Like one that had been led astray
Through the heaven'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 curfew* sound
Over some wide-watered shore,
Swinging slow with sullen roar.
Or, if the air will not permit,
Some still, removéd place will fit,

Where glowing embers through the room
Teach light to counterfeit a gloon: ;

Far from all resort of mirth,

Save the cricket on the hearth,

47. 'Less = unless; Philomel, the 64. plat, plot; compare grass-plat.

nightingale.

50. Cynthia, the moon goddess; her dragon yoke: that is, her train drawn by dragons.

51. the accustomed oak. This seems

to refer to a particular land-
scape which Milton had in his
mind.

65. curfew, the curfew bell. See Glos-
sary, and compare with Gray's
Elegy, page 196 of this book.
66. Over some wide-watered shore: that
is, over some shore and the
wide piece of water (river or
lake) that borders it.

69. removéd, sequestered.

59. near her highest noon: that is, near- 73. save, except. This word is originally

ly full.

the imperative of the verb to save.