XIV. IL PENSEROSO *. ENCE vain deluding joys, H. The brood of folly without father bred, How little you befted, Or fill the fixed mind with all your toys? Dwell in fome idle brain, And fancies fond with gaudy fhapes poffefs, As thick and numberless As the gay motes that people the fun-beams, The fickle penfioners of Morpheus train. 10 Il Penferofo is the thoughtful melancholy man; and this poem both in its model and principal circumftances, is taken from a fong in praise of melancholy in Beaumont and Fletcher's comedy call'd The Nice Valour, or Paffionate Madman. The reader will not be displeased to see it here, as it is well worth tranfcribing. Hence all you vain delights, As fhort as are the nights Wherein you spend your folly; There's nought in this life sweet, If man were wife to fee't, But only Melancholy, Oh sweetest Melancholy. Welcome folded arms, and fix'd eyes, A look that's faften'd to the ground, Then ftretch our bones in a still gloomy valley, Whofe faintly visage is too bright To hit the fenfe of human fight, O'er-laid with black, ftaid wisdom's hue; Prince Memnon's fifter might befeem, To fet her beauties praise above 15 20 The Sea-Nymphs, and their pow'rs offended: And join with thee calm Peace, and Quiet, 45 Spare Faft, that oft with Gods doth diet, And hears the Mufes in a ring Sweet bird that fhunn'ft the noise of folly, Thee chauntrefs oft the woods among 55 65 Through the Heav'n's wide pathlefs way. 70 And oft, as if her head she bow'd, Stooping through a fleecy cloud. Oft on a plat of rifing ground, Where glowing embers through the room. 75 |