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Me softer airs befit, and softer strings

Of lute, or viol still, more apt for mournful things.

V.

Befriend me Night, best patroness of grief,
Over the pole thy thickest mantle throw,

And work my flatter'd fancy to belief,

That heav'n and earth are colour'd with my woe;
My sorrows are too dark for day to know:

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The leaves should all be black whereon I write,
And letters where my tears have wash'd a wannish white.
VI.

See, see the chariot, and those rushing wheels,
That whirl'd the Prophet up at Chebar flood,

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28. still] That is, gentle, not loud, not noisy, as is the trumpet. So 1 Kings xix. 12. "A still small voice." And in First Part Henry V. a. iv. s. 1.

The hum of either army stilly sounds.

See also Il Pens. 127. Still is not often applied to sound.

Hence still-born of a child born dead. T. Warton.

30. See Par. Lost, iv. 609. And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw. Where see the note. T. Warton.

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34. Conceits were now con

fined not to words only. Mr. Steevens has a volume of Elegies, in all the title-pages of which the paper is black, and the letters white. Every intermediate leaf is also black. What a sudden change from this childish idea to the noble apostrophe, the sublime rapture and imagination of the next stanza. T. Warton.

37. That whirl'd the prophet up at Chebar flood,] As the prophet

My spirit some transporting Cherub feels,

To bear me where the tow'rs of Salem stood,

Once glorious tow'rs, now sunk in guiltless blood; 40
There doth my soul in holy vision sit

In pensive trance, and anguish, and ecstatic fit.
VII.

Mine eye hath found that sad sepulchral rock
That was the casket of heav'n's richest store,
And here though grief my feeble hands up lock,
Yet on the soften'd quarry would I score
My plaining verse as lively as before;

For sure so well instructed are my tears,
That they would fitly fall in order'd characters.
VIII.

Or should I thence hurried on viewless wing,
Take up a weeping on the mountains wild,
The gentle neighbourhood of grove and spring

Ezekiel saw the vision of the four wheels and of the glory of God at the river Chebar, and was carried in the spirit to Jerusalem; so the poet fancies himself transported to the same place.

42. This is to be held in holy passion, as in Il Pens. 41. mine eye hath found that sad sepulchral rock, &c. He seems here to have been struck with reading Sandys's description of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem; and to have catched sympathetically Sandys's sudden impulse to break forth into a devout song at the awful and inspiring spectacle. "It is a frozen zeal that will not "be warmed at the sight thereof. "And oh, that I could retaine "the effects that it wrought with

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"an unfainting perseverance! "who then did dictate this 'hymne to my Redeemer, &c." Travels, p. 167. ed. 1627. The first is 1615. T. Warton.

50. -hurried on viewless wing,} Viewless; see Par. Lost, iii. 518. Hurried is used here in an acceptation less familiar than at present. And so in other places, as Par. Lost, ii. 603, 937. v. 778. In all these passages it is applied to preternatural motion, the movements of imaginary beings. T. Warton.

51. Take up a weeping on the mountains wild.] This expression is from Jeremiah ix. 10. For the mountains will I take up a weeping and wailing, &c. T. Warton.

Would soon unbosom all their echoes mild,
And I (for grief is easily beguil'd)

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Might think th' infection of my sorrows loud Had got a race of mourners on some pregnant cloud. This subject the author finding to be above the years he had, when he wrote it, and nothing satisfied with what was begun, left it unfinished.

V.

On Time *.

FLY envious Time, till thou run out thy race,
Call on the lazy leaden-stepping hours,
Whose speed is but the heavy plummet's pace;
And glut thyself with what thy womb devours,
Which is no more than what is false and vain,
And merely mortal dross;

So little is our loss,

So little is thy gain.

For when as each thing bad thou hast intomb'd,
And last of all thy greedy self consum❜d,
Then long Eternity shall greet our bliss

With an individual kiss;

And Joy shall overtake us as a flood,
When every thing that is sincerely good

* In these poems where no date is prefixed, and no circumstances direct us to ascertain the time when they were composed, we follow the order of Milton's own editions. And before this copy of verses, it appears from

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the manuscript that the poet had written To be set on a clock-case.

12, —individual] Eternal, inseparable. As in P. L. iv. 485. v. 610. See note on dividual, P. L. vii. 382. T. Warton.

14. sincerely good.] Purely,

And perfectly divine,

With truth, and peace, and love, shall ever shine
About the supreme throne

Of him, t' whose happy-making sight alone

When once our heav'nly-guided soul shall clime,
Then all this earthy grossness quit,

Attir'd with stars, we shall for ever sit,

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Triumphing over Death, and Chance, and thee, O Time.

VI.

Upon the Circumcision.

YE flaming pow'rs, and winged warriors bright,
That erst with music, and triumphant song,
First heard by happy watchful shepherds' ear,
So sweetly sung your joy the clouds along
Through the soft silence of the list'ning night;
Now mourn, and if sad share with us to bear
Your fiery essence can distil no tear,
Burn in your sighs, and borrow

Seas wept from our deep sorrow:
He who with all heav'n's heraldry whilere

perfectly, good; as in Comus,
455. T. Warton.

18.-happy-making sight,] The plain English of beatific vision. 7. Your fiery essence can distil no tear,

Burn in your sighs,] Milton is puzzled how to reconcile the transcendent essence of angels with the infirmities of men. He met with a similar difficulty in describing the repast of Raphael in Paradise; P. L.

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v. 434-443. In the present
instance he wishes to make angels
weep. But being of the essence
of fire, they cannot produce
water. At length he recollects
that fire may produce burning
sighs. It is debated in Thomas
Aquinas whether angels have
not, or may not have, beards.
T. Warton.

10. He who with all heav'n's
heraldry whilere
Enter'd the world.]

Enter'd the world, now bleeds to give us ease;

Alas, how soon our sin

Sore doth begin

His infancy to seize !

O more exceeding love or law more just?
Just law indeed, but more exceeding love!
For we by rightful doom remediless

Were lost in death, till he that dwelt above
High thron'd in secret bliss, for us frail dust
Emptied his glory, ev'n to nakedness;

And that great covenant which we still transgress
Entirely satisfied,

And the full wrath beside

Of vengeful justice bore for our excess,

And seals obedience first with wounding smart
This day, but O ere long

Huge pangs and strong

Will pierce more near his heart*.

Great pomps and processions are proclaimed or preceded by heralds. It is the same idea in P. L. i. 752.

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Improbus ille puer: crudelis tu quoque mater.

Richardson.

20. Emptied his glory,] An ex

Meanwhile the winged heralds by pression taken from Phil. ii. 7.

command

Of sovereign power, &c.

And again, b. ii. 516. Or heraldry may mean retinue, train, the procession itself; what he otherwise calls pomp. See the note, P. L. viii. 60. T. Warton.

15. O more exceeding love or law more just?

but not as it is in our translation, He made himself of no reputation, but as it is in the original, ἑαυτον ExEvos, He emptied himself.

24. for our excess,] He has used the word in the same sense Paradise Lost, xi. 111.

Bewailing their excessbut I think with greater pro

Just law indeed, but more ex- priety there than here.

ceeding love!]

Virgil, Ecl. viii. 49.

*It is hard to say, why these three odes on the three grand

Crudelis mater magis, an puer im- incidents or events of the life of

probus ille ?

Christ, (the Nativity, the Passion,

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