Right against the eastern gate
Where the great sun begins his state,
Robed in flames, and amber light
The clouds in thousand liveries dight;
While the ploughman, near at hand,
Whistles o'er the furrow'd land,
And the milkmaid singeth blithe,
And the mower whets his sithe,
And every shepherd tells his tale
Under the hawthorn in the dale.

Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures,

Whilst the landskip round it measures;

Russet lawns, and fallows gray,

Where the nibbling flocks do stray;
Mountains, on whose barren breast
The labouring clouds do often rest;
Meadows trim with daisies pied,
Shallow brooks, and rivers wide:
Towers and battlements it sees
Bosom'd high in tufted trees,
Where perhaps some Beauty lies,
The Cynosure of neighbouring eyes.
Hard by, a cottage chimney smoaks,
From betwixt two aged oaks,
Where Corydon3 and Thyrsis, met,
Are at their savoury dinner set
Of herbs, and other country messes,
Which the neat-handed Phillis dresses;
And then in haste her bower she leaves,
With Thestylis to bind the sheaves;
Or, if the earlier season lead,

To the tann'd haycock in the mead.

Pied' of various colours.- Cynosure:' loadstar.- Corydon,' &c. :

classical names adapted to modern manners and labours.

Sometimes with secure delight
The upland hamlets will invite,
When the merry bells ring round,
And the jocund rebecks1 sound

To many a youth, and many a maid,
Dancing in the chequer'd 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 faery Mab the junkets2 eat;
She was pinch'd, and pull'd, she sed;
And he, by friar's lantern3 led,
Tells how the drudging Goblin swet.
To earn his cream-bowl duly set,
When in one night, ere glimpse of morn,
His shadowy flail hath thresh'd the corn,
That ten day-labourers could not end;
Then lies him down the lubbar 5 fiend,
And, stretch'd 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 whispering winds soon lull'd asleep.
Tower'd 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

1 'Rebeck:' a kind of fiddle.—2 Junket:' rural supper.- 'Friar's lantern: Will o' Wisp.- 'Goblin :' Robin Goodfellow, the English Brownie.

Lubbar:' clownish.

M

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

In saffron1 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 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 2
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 heap'd Elysian flowers, and hear

Such strains as would have won the ear

Of Pluto, to have quite set free
His half-regain'd Eurydice.

These delights if thou canst give,
Mirth, with thee I mean to live.

Saffron

the traditional colour of the robes of the god of marriage.

2 Bout:' fold or twist.

IL PENSEROSO.1

HENCE, vain deluding Joys,

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

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 sun-beams;
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

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

offended:

Prince Memnon's sister2 might beseem,
Or that starr'd Ethiop queen3 that strove
To set her beauty's praise above
The Sea-Nymphs, and their powers
Yet thou art higher far descended :
Thee, bright-hair'd Vesta, long of yore,
The solitary Saturn 5 bore

His daughter she; in Saturn's reign,

Such mixture was not held a stain:

36

6

''Il Penseroso:' The Thoughtful or Pensive Man. .2 Prince Memnon's sister an imaginary character. - Ethiop queen:' Cassiope, Queen of Ethiopia, who was said to have been turned into a constellation. ''Vesta' means genius. 'Saturn' represents gloomy and deep-thoughted minds.

Oft in glimmering bowers and glades
He met her, and in secret shades
Of woody Ida's inmost grove,
Whilst yet there was no fear of Jove.
Come, pensive Nun, devout and pure,
Sober, stedfast, and demure,
All in a robe of darkest grain,
Flowing with majestick train,
And sable stole of cyprus1 lawn,
Over thy decent shoulders drawn.
Come, but keep thy wonted state,
With even step, and musing gait;
And looks commércing 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-wheeled2 throne,
The Cherub Contemplation;
And the mute Silence hist along,
'Less Philomel3 will deign a song,
In her sweetest saddest plight,
Smoothing the rugged brow of night,

'Cyprus: a thin transparent texture. -2 Fiery-wheeled:' an allusion to Ezekiel's wheels. Philomel:' the nightingale.