Was I deceiv'd, or did a sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining on the night?
I did not err, there does a sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining on the night,
And casts a gleam over this tufted grove:
I cannot halloo to my brothers, but

Such noise as I can make to be heard farthest
I'll venture; for my new-enliven'd spirits
Prompt me; and they, perhaps, are not far off.

225

230

And in the violet-embroider'd vale,

Nightly to thee her sad song mourneth well;

235

Canst thou not tell me of a gentle pair

That likest thy Narcissus are?

O, if thou have

Hid them in some flowery cave,

Tell me but where,

240

Sweet queen of parly, daughter of the sphere,

V. 221-Was I deceiv'd, &c.] These lines are turned like that verse of Ovid, Fast. lib. v. 545.

"Fallor? an arma sonant? non fallimur: arma sonabant."

HURD

See also note on Eleg. v. 5. The repetition, arising from the conviction and confidence of an unaccusing conscience, is inimitably beautiful. When all succour seems to be lost, Heaven unexpectedly presents the silver lining of a sable cloud to the virtuous.

WARTON.

But

V. 231.-aery shell.] Some of the editors had written cell. Dr. Hurd says, "the true reading is certainly shell; meaning, as Dr. Warburton observes, the horizon, which, in another place, he calls the hollow round of Cynthia's seat, Ode Nativ. st. 10. That is, the hollow circumference of the heavens."

V. 241. Milton has given her a much nobler and more poetical

So may'st thou be translated to the skies,

And give resounding grace to all Heav'ns harmonies.

Enter Comus.

COMUS. Can any
mortal mixture of earth's mould
Breathe such divine enchanting ravishment?
Sure something holy lodges in that breast,
And with these raptures moves the vocal air
To testify his hidden residence.

How sweetly did they float upon the wings
Of Silence, through the empty-vaulted night,
At every fall, smoothing the raven-down
Of darkness, till it smil'd! I have oft heard
My mother, Circe, with the Syrens three,
Amidst the flowery-kirtled Naiades,

245

250

original than any of the ancient mythologists. He supposes her to owe her first existence to the reverberation of the music of the spheres; in consequence of which he had just before called the horizon her aery shell. And from the gods (like other celestial beings of the classical order) she came down to men. WARBURTON.

The goddess Echo was of peculiar service in the machinery of a Mask, and therefore often introduced. Milton has here used her much more rationally than most of his brother mask-writers. She is invoked in a song, but not without the usual tricks of surprising the audience by strange and unexpected repetitions of sound, in Browne's Inner Temple Masque. She often appears in Jonson's masks. This frequent introduction, however, of Echo in the masks of his time, seems to be ridiculed even by Jonson himself in Cynthia's Revels, A. i. S. i.

V. 244. Can any mortal, &c.] This was plainly personal. Here the poet availed himself of an opportunity of paying a just compliment to the voice and skill of a real songstress; just as the two boys are complimented for their beauty and elegance of figure. And af terwards, the straius that "might create a soul under the ribs of death," are brought home, and found to be the voice" of my most honour d lady," v. 564, where the real and assumed characters of the speaker are blended. WARTON.

V.253. My mother Circe,&c.] Originally from Ovid, Metam. xiv. 264, of Circe.

V. 254-flowery-kirtled.] Flowery-mantled.

Culling their potent herbs and baleful drugs;
Who as they sung, would take the prison'd soul,
And lap it in Elysium: Scylla wept,

And chid her barking waves into attention,
And fell Charybdis murmur'd soft applause:

255

Yet they in pleasing slumber lull'd the sense,
And in sweet madness robb'd it of itself;
But such a sacred and home-felt delight,
Such sober certainty of waking bliss,

I never heard 'till now. I'll speak to her,

260

And she shall be my queen.---Hail, foreign wonder! 265
Whom certain these rough shades did never breed,
Unless the goddess that in rural shrine

Dwell'st here with Pan, or Sylvan; by blest song
Forbidding every bleak unkindly fog

To touch the prosperous growth of this tall wood.
Lad. Nay, gentle shepherd, ill is lost that praise,

That is address'd to unattending ears;

Not any boast of skill, but extreme shift

270

V. 257-Scylla wept, &c.] Silius Italicus, of a Sicilian shepherd tuning his reed, Bell. Pun. xiv. 467.

"Scyllæi tacuere canes, stetit atra Charybdis."

WARTON.

V. 261. And in sweet madness, &c.] Compare Shakspeare, Winter's Tale, A. and S. ult.

"Make me to think so twenty years together;

"No settled senses of the word cau match

"The pleasure of that madness.

V. 270.-Comus's Address to the Lady, from v. 265, to the end of this line, is in a very fine high stile of classical gallantry. As Cicero says of Plato's language, that if Jupiter were to speak Greek, he would speak as Plato has written; so we may say of this language of Milton, that if Jupiter were to speak English, he would express himself in this manner. The passage is exceeding beautiful in every respect; but all readers of taste will acknowledge, that the style of it is much raised by the expression Unless the goddess, an elliptical expression, unusual in our language, though common enough in Greek and Latin. But if we were to fill it up and say, Unless thou beest Goddess; how flat and insipid would it make the composition, compared with what it is. LORD MONBODDO.

How to regain my sever'd company,
Compell'd me to awake the courteous Echo
To give me answer from her mossy couch.

275

Com. What chance, good lady, hath bereft you thus? Lad. Dim darkness, and this leafy labyrinth,

280

Com. Could that divide you from near-ushering guides?
Lad. They left me weary on a grassy turf.
Com. By falshood, or discourtesy, or why?
Lad. To seek i' the valley some cool friendly spring.
Com. And left your fair side all unguarded, Lady?
Lad. They were but twain, and purpos'd quick return.
Com. Perhaps forestalling night prevented them.
Lad. How easy my misfortune is to hit!
Com. Imports their loss, beside the present need?
Lad. No less than if I should my Brothers lose.
Com. Were they of manly prime or youthful bloom?
Lad. As smooth as Hebe's their unrazor'd lips.
Com. Two such I saw, what time the labour'd ox

In his loose traces from the furrow came,
And the swink'd hedger at his supper sat;

I saw them under a green mantling vine,
That crawls along the side of yon small hill,

285

290

295

V. 276. &c.] Here is an imitation of those scenes in the Greek tragedies, where the dialogue proceeds by question and answer, a single verse being allotted to each. The Greeks, doubtless, found a grace in this sort of dialogue. As it was one of the characteristics of the Greek drama, it was natural enough for our young poet, passionately fond of the Greek tragedies, to affect this peculiarity But he judged better in his riper years; there being no instance of this dialogue, I think, in his Samson Agonistes. HURD.

V. 282.-To seek i' the valley.] Here Mr. Sympson observed with me, that this is a different reason from what she had assigned before, v. 186. "To bring me berries, &c." They might have left her on both accounts.. NEWTON.

V. 293.-swink'd hedger.] The swink'd hedger's supper is from nature. And hedger, a word new in poetry, although of common use, has a good effect. Swink'd, is tired, fatigued,

Swink is the language of Chaucer and Spenser.

WARTON,

TODD.

Plucking ripe clusters from the tender shoots;

Their port was more than human, as they stood;
I took it for a faery vision

Of some gay creatures of the element,

That in the colours of the rainbow live,

And play i' the plighted clouds. I was aw-struck,
And, as I past, I worshipt; if those you seek,
It were a journey like the path to heaven,

To help you find them.

Lad.

Gentle Villager,

What readiest way would bring me to that place?

Com. Due west it rises from this shrubby point. Lad. To find out that, good shepherd, I suppose, In such a scant allowance of star-light,

300

305

Would over-task the best land-pilot's art,
Without the sure guess of well-practis'd feet.

310

Com. I know each lane, and every alley green,

Dingle, or bushy dell of this wild wood,

V. 299.-the element.] In the north of England this term is still made use of for the sky.

THYER.

V. 301-plighted.] The lustre of Milton's brilliant imagery is half obscured, while plighted remains unexplained. We are to understand the braided or embroider'd clouds: in which certain airy or elemental beings are most poetically supposed to sport, thus pro ducing a variety of transient and dazzling colours, as our author says of the sun, Par. Lost. B. iv. 596.

"Arraying with reflected purple and gold

"The clouds that on his western throne attend."

V. 312-Dingle, &c.] This word is still in use, and signifies a valley between two steep hills. A bourn, the sense of which in this passage has never been explained with precision, properly signifiés here, a winding, deep and narrow valley, with a rivulet at the bottom. In the present instance, the declivities are interspersed with trees and bushes. This sort of valley Comus knew from side to side. He knew both the opposite sides or ridges, and had consequently traversed the intermediate space. Such situations have no other name in the West of England at this day. Bosky is woody, or rather bushy. As in the Tempest, A. iv. S. i.

"My bosky acres, and my unshrubb'd down.”