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But come, thou Goddess fair and free,
In Heav'n ycleap'd Euphrofyne,
And by men heart-easing Mirth,
Whom lovely Venus at a birth
With two sister-Graces more
To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore;
Or whether (as some sages fing)
The frolic-wind, that breathes the spring,
Zephyr with Aurora playing,
As he met her once a Maying,
There on beds of violets blue,
And fresh-blown roses wash'd in dew,
Fill'd her with thee a daughter fair,
So buxom, blithe, and debonair,
Halte thee, Nymph, and bring with thee
Jeft and youthful Jollity,
Quips and Cranks and wanton Wiles,
Nods and Becks, and wreathed Smiles,
Such, as hang on Hebe's cheek,
And love to live in dimple sleek;
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 honor due,
Mirth, admit me of thy crew
To live with her, and live with theea
In unreproved pleasures free;
To hear the lark begin his flight,
And singing startle the dull night
From his watch-tow'r in the kies,
Till the dappled dawn doth rise;

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Then to come in spite of sorrow,

45 And at my window bid good morrowThrough the sweet briar, or the vine, Or the twisted eglantine : While the cock with litely din Scatters the rear of darkness thin,

50 And to the stack or the barn-door Stoutly struts his dames before: Oft list’ning how the hounds and horn Chearly rouse the numb'ring morn From the side of some hoar hill,

55 Through the high wood echoing Arill : Some time walking not unseen By hedge-row elms on hiillocs green, Right against the eastern gate, Where the great sun begins his state,

60 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 milk-maid singeth blithe, And the mower whets his fithe, And every shepherd tells his tale Under the hawthorn in the dale. Strait mine eye hath caught new pleasures, Whilst the landskip round it measures,

70 Ruffet lawns, and fallows gray, Where the nibbling flocks do fray, Mountains on whose barren breast The lab'ring clouds do often reit, Meadows trim with daisies pied,

75 Shallow brooks, and rivers wide. Towers and battlements it fees Bofom'd high in tufted trees,

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Where perhaps some beauty lies,
The Cynosure of nighb'ring eyes.
Hard by, a cottage chimney smokes.
From betwixt two aged oaks,
Where Corydon and Thyrsis met
Are at their favory dinner set
Of herbs and other country-messes,
Which the neat-handed Phillis dresses;
And then in haste her bow'r she leaves,
With Theftylis to bind the sheaves ;
Or,if the earlier season lead,
To the tann'd haycock in the mead.
Sometimes with secure delight
The upland-hamlets will invite,
When the merry bells ring round,
And the jocund rebecs found
To many a youth and many a maid,
Dancing in the chequer'd shade:
And young and old come forth, to play
On a fun-fhine 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 junkets eat,
She was pincht, and pull dofhe said,
And he by friers' lanthorn led
Tells how the drudging Goblin swet:
To earn his cream-bowl duly set,
When in one night, ere glimse of morn,
His shadowy filale hath thresh'd the corn,
That ten day-lab'rers could not end;
Then lies him down the lubbar-fiend,
And stretch'd out all the chimney's length
Balks at the fire his hairy strength,

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And crop-full out of doors he fings,
Ere the first cock his matin rings.
Thus done the tales, to bed they creep,

115
By whisp'ring winds soon luli'd asleep.
Towred cities please us then,
And the busy hum of men,
Where throngs of knights and barons bold
In weeds of peace high triumphs hold,

120 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

125 In faffron-robe, with taper clear, And pomp, and feast, and revelry, With malk, and antique pageantry, Such fights as youthful poets dream On summer-eves by haunted stream.

130 Then to the well-trod stage anon, If Johnson's learned sock be on, Or sweetest Shakespear, fancy's child, Warble his native wood-notes wild. And ever against eating cares

135 Lap me in soft Lydian airs, Married to immortal verse, Such as the meeting foul may pierce In notes with many a winding bout Of linked sweetness long drawn out,

140 With wanton heed and giddy cunning The melting voice through mazes running, Untwisting all the chains that ty The hidden foul of harmony; That Orpheus self may heave his head

145 From golden Number on a bed

Of heapt Elysian flow'rs, 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.

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XIV.

IL PENSER OS O *.

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ENCE,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 poffefs, As thick and numberless

As the gay motes, that people the sun-beams,
Or likelt hovering dreams

The fickie pensioners of Morpheus' train.
But hail thou,Goddess, fage and holy,
Hail divinest Melancholy,
Whose faintly visage is too bright
To hit the sense of human fight,
And therefore to our weaker view
O’er-laid with black, staid wisdom's hue ;
Black, but such as in esteem
Prince Memnon's fifter might beseem,

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* Il Penseroso is the thoughtful melancholy man; and this poena both in its model and principal circumstances is taken from a long in praise of melancholy in Beaumont and Fletcher's comedy call'd The Nice Valour, or pasionate Madman,

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