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, And work my flatter'd fancy to belief, That heav'n and earth are colour'd with my woe; 30 The leaves should all be black whereon I write, See, see the chariot, and those rushing wheels, 36 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. 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 In pensive trance, and anguish, and ecstatic fit. Mine eye hath found that sad sepulchral rock For sure so well instructed are my tears, Or should I thence hurried on viewless wing, 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 45 50 50 "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, 55 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, So little is our loss, So little is thy gain. For when as each thing bad thou hast intomb'd, With an individual kiss; And Joy shall overtake us as a flood, * 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 5 10 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 Of him, t' whose happy-making sight alone When once our heav'nly-guided soul shall clime, Attir'd with stars, we shall for ever sit, 15 20 Triumphing over Death, and Chance, and thee, O Time. VI. Upon the Circumcision. YE flaming pow'rs, and winged warriors bright, Seas wept from our deep sorrow: perfectly, good; as in Comus, 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. 5 10 v. 434-443. In the present 10. He who with all heav'n's 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? Were lost in death, till he that dwelt above And that great covenant which we still transgress And the full wrath beside Of vengeful justice bore for our excess, And seals obedience first with wounding smart 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. 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, |