Who fill'd with unexhaufted fire,
May boldly ftrike the founding lyre,.
May rife above the rhyming throng,
And with fome new, unequall'd fong.
O'er all our lift'ning paffions reign,
O'erwhelm our fouls with joy and pain;
With terror fhake, with pity move,
Rouze with revenge, or melt with love.
O deign t' attend his evening walk,
With him in groves and grottos talk:
Teach him to fcorn with frigid art
Feebly to touch th' unraptur'd heart;
Like light'ning, let his mighty verfe
The bofom's inmoft foldings pierce :
With native beauties win applaufe,,
Beyond cold critics' ftudied laws :
O let each Mufe's fame increase,
Obid Britannia rival Greece!

L'ALLEGRO..

[MILTON]

H

ENCE loathed Melancholy,

Of Cerberus, and blackeft midnight born,.

In Stygian cave forlorn

'Mong'ft horrid fhapes, and fhrieks, and fights unholy; Find out fome uncouth cell,

Where brooding darkness spreads his jealous wings,,

And the night raven fings;

10

There under ebon fhades, and low-brow'd rocks,.

As ragged as thy locks,

In dark Cimmerian defart ever dwell.
But come thou goddefs fair and free,.
In heav'n yclep'd Euphrofyne,
And by men heart-eafing Mirth,
Whom lovely Venus at a birth.
With two fifter Graces more
To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore;
Or whether (as fome fages fing)

The frolic wind that breathes the spring,
Zephyr with Aurora playing,

As he met her-once à maying,
There on beds of violets blue,

And fresh-blown rofes wafh'd in dew,, venda

Fill'a

Fill'd her with thee a daughter fair,
So buckfome, blithe, and debonair.
Hafte thee, nymph, and bring with thee
Jeft and youthful jollity,

Quips and cranks, and wanton wiles,
Nods, and becks, and wreathed fmiles,.
Such as hang on Hebe's cheek,
And love to live in dimple fleek;
Sport that wrinkled care derides,
And Laughter holding both his fides.
Come, and trip it as you go
On the light fantastic toe;

And in thy right hand lead with thee
The mountain nymph, fweet Liberty ;
And if I give thee honour 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 finging startle the dull night,
From his watch-tower in the fkies,
Till the dappled dawn doth rife
Then to come in fpite of forrow,
And at my window bid good-morrow,
Through the fweet briar, or the vine,
Or the twifted eglantine:

While the cock with lively din
Scatters the rear of darkness thin,

And to the ftack, or the barn door,
Stoutly ftruts his dames before :

Oft lift'ning how the hounds and horn
Chearly roufe the flumb'ring morn,
From the fide of fome hoar hill,
Through the high wood echoing fhrill:
Some time walking not unfeen

By hedge-row elms, on hillocks green,
Right against the eastern gate,
Where the great fun begins his ftate,
Rob'd in flames, and amber light,
The clouds in thousand liveries dight:
While the plow-man near at hand,
Whistles o'er the furrow'd land,
And the milkmaid fingeth blithe,
And the mower whets his feythe,

And.

And every fhepherd tells his tale

Under the hawthorn in the dale.

Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures,"
Whilft the landskip round it measures;

Ruffet lawns, and fallows gray,
Where the nibbling flocks do ftray;
Mountains on whofe barren breaft
The labouring clouds do often reft;
Meadows trim with daifies pied;
Shallow brooks, and rivers wide:
Towers and battlements it fees
Bofom'd high in tufted trees,
Where perhaps fome beauty lies,
The Cynofure of neighbouring eyes.
Hard by a cottage-chimney fmokes,
From betwixt two aged oaks,
Where Corydon and Thryfis met,
Are at their favoury dinner fet

Of herbs, and other country meffes,
Which the neat-handed Phyllis dreffes;
And then in hafte her bower the leaves,
With Theftylis to bind his fheaves;
Or, if the earlier feafon lead,
To the tann'd haycock in the mead.
Sometimes with fecure delight
The upland hamlets will invite,
When the merry bells ring round,
And the jocund rebecks found
To many a youth, and many a maid,
Dancing in the chequer'd fhade;
And young and old come forth to play
On a funfhine holiday,

Till the live-long day-light fail;
Then to the fpicy nut-brown ale,
With ftories told of many a feat,
How Fairy-Mab the junkets eat;
She was pincht, and pull'd, the said,
And he by friars lanthorn led;
Tells how the drudging Goblin fwet,
To earn his cream-bowl duly fet,

When in one night, ere glimpse of morn,
His fhadowy flail hath threfh'd the corn,
That ten day-labourers could not end,
Then lies him down the lubbar fiend,

And

And ftretch'd out all the chimney's length;
Basks at the fire his hairy ftrength;
And crop-full out of doors he flings,
Ere the firft cock his mattin rings.
Thus done the tales, to bed they creep,.
By whispering winds foon lull'd asleep.
Tow'red cities pleafe us then,
And the busy hum of men,

Where throngs of knights and barons bold,
In weeds of peace high triumphs hold,
With ftore of ladies, whofe 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 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 stream.
Then to the well-trod stage anon,.
If Johnson's learned fock be on,
Or fweeteft Shakespear, 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 fweetnefs long drawn out,
With wanton heed, and giddy cunning,
The melting voice thro' 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 heap'd Elyfian flowers, and hear
Such ftrains as would have won the ear
Of Pluto, to have quite fet free
His half-regain'd Eurydice.

Thefe delights if thou canft give,
Mirth, with thee I mean to live..

IL PENSER OS O.

[MILTON.]

HENCE

ENCE vain deluding joys,

The brood of folly without father bred! How little you befted,

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

And fancies fond with gaudy shapes 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, i

Whofe faintly vifage is too bright
To hit the fenfe of human fight;
And therefore to our weaker view
O'erlaid with black, ftaid wisdom's hue;
Black, but fuch as in efteem,

Prince Memnon's fifter might befeem,
Or that ftarr'd Ethiope queen that ftrove
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 fhe (in Saturn's reign
Such mixture was not held a stain)
Oft, in glimmering bowers and glades,
He met her, and in fecret fhades
Of woody Ida's inmoft grove,
While yet there was no fear of Jove.
Come, penfive nun, devout and pure,
Sober, ftedfaft, 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 ev'n ftep, and mufing gait,
And looks commercing with the skies,
Thy rapt foul fitting in thine eyes :

There