Thy droufy nurse hath fworn fhe did them spie
Come tripping to the room where thou didft lie,
And sweetly finging round about thy bed
Strow all their blessings on thy fleeping head.

She heard them give thee this, that thou fhouldt ftill
From eyes of mortals walk invifible:

Yet there is fomething that doth force my fear,
For once it was my dismal hap to hear

A Sibyl old, bow-bent with crooked age,
That far events full wifely could prefage,
And in time's long and dark prospective glass
Forefaw what future days fhould bring to pafs;
Your fon, faid fhe, (nor can you it prevent)
Shall fubject be to many an Accident.
O'er all his brethren he fhall reign as king,
Yet every one shall make him underling,
And those that cannot live from him afunder
Ungratefully shall strive to keep him under,
In worth and excellence he fhall out-go them,
Yet being above them, he fhall be below them;

66

7°

75

80

From

the loves of Mars and Venus, and the de- reft are affected in the manner here defcrib'd. ftruction of Troy; and Ulyffes and the 56. of thy predicament:] What the

Greeks

From others he shall stand in need of nothing,

Yet on his brothers fhall depend for clothing.
To find a foe it shall not be his hap,
And peace fhall lull him in her flow'ry lap;
Yet fhall he live in ftrife, and at his door
Devouring war shall never cease to roar:
Yea it shall be his natural property

To harbour those that are at enmity.

85

What pow'r, what force, what mighty spell, if not Your learned hands, can loose this Gordian knot? 90 The

Greeks called a category, Boëthius firft named a predicament: and if the reader is acquainted with Ariftotle's Categories, or Burgerfdicius, or any of the old logicians, he will not want what follows to be explain'd to him; and it cannot well be explain'd to him, if he is unacquainted with that kind of logic.

91. Rivers arife; &c.] In invoking these rivers Milton had his eye particularly upon that admirable episode in Spenfer of the marriage of the Thames and the Medway, where the feveral rivers are introduc'd in honor of the ceremony. Faery Queen B. 4. Cant. 11. Of utmoft Tweed; fo Spenfer St. 36.

And Twede the limit betwixt Logris land
And Albany

Or Oafe, either that in Yorkshire, or that in
Cambridgeshire, both mention'd by Spenfer.
Or gulphy Dun, I find not in Spenfer, but fup-
pofe the Don is meant from whence Doncaster

has its name; and Camden's account of this river fhows the propriety of the epithet gulphy.

Danus, commonly Don and Dune, feems to be fo call'd, because it is carried in a low "deep channel; for that is the fignification of "the British word Dan." See Camden's Yorkfhire. Or Trent, who like fome earth-born giant &c. This defcription is much nobler than Spenfer's St. 35.

And bounteous Trent, that in himself enfeams

Both thirty forts of fish, and thirty fundry ftreams.

The name is of Saxon original, but (as Camden obferves in his Staffordshire.) "fome ig"norant and idle pretenders imagin the cc name to be derived from the French word

Trente, and upon that account have feign'd "thirty rivers running into it, and likewife "fo many kinds of fifh fwimming in it." However this notion might very well be

adopted

The next Quantity and Quality spake in profe, then Relation was call'd by his name.

RIVERS arife; whether thou be the fon

Of utmost Tweed, or Oose, or gulphy Dun,
Or Trent, who like fome earth-born giant spreads
His thirty arms along th' indented meads,
Or fullen Mole that runneth underneath,
Or Severn swift, guilty of maidens' death,
Or rocky Avon, or of fedgy Lee,
Or coaly Tine, or ancient hallow'd Dee,

adopted in poetry. Or fulle Mole &c. Spenfer St. 32.

95

Or

So Wall. St. 36. Or ancient hallow'd Dee; fo
Spenfer St. 39.

And following Dee, which Britons long ygone

Did call divine, that doth by Chester tend.

See Lycidas too ver 55. Or Humber loud &c.
So Spenser speaks of this Scythian king, and
of his being drown'd in the river, St. 38.

And nam'd the river of his wretched fate;
Whose bad condition yet it doth retain,
Oft toffed with his ftorms, which therein
still remain.

And the Medway and the Thame are join'd to-
gether, as they are married in Spenfer. I
wonder that Milton has paid no particular
compliment to the river flowing by Cambridge
(this exercise being made and spoken there) as
Spenser has done St. 34.

Or Humber loud that keeps the Scythian's name,

Or Medway smooth, or royal towred Thame. [The reft was profe.]

III.

On the MORNING of CHRIST'S NATIVITY.
* Compos'd 1629.

I

"HIS is the month, and this the happy morn,

THI

Wherein the Son of Heav'n's eternal King,
Of wedded Maid, and Virgin Mother born,
Our great redemption from above did bring;
For fo the holy fages once did fing,

That he our deadly forfeit should release,
And with his Father work us a perpetual peace.

II.

That glorious form, that light unfufferable,

And that far-beaming blaze of majesty,

100

5

Wherewith he wont at Heav'n's high council-table 10

To fit the midst of Trinal Unity,

Thence doth by Huntingdon and Cambridge
Alit,

My mother Cambridge, whom as with a crown
He doth adorn, and is adorn'd of it

He

With many a gentle Mufe, and many a learn

ed wit.

To the title of this Ode we have added the date, which is prefixed in the edition of

He laid afide; and here with us to be,
Forfook the courts of everlasting day,

And chofe with us a darkfome houfe of mortal clay.

III.

Say heav'nly Mufe, fhall not thy facred vein
Afford a present to the Infant God?

15

Haft thou no verfe, no hymn, or folemn ftrain,
To welcome him to this his new abode,
Now while the Heav'n by the fun's team untrod,
Hath took no print of the approaching light,
And all the spangled host keep watch in fquadrons
bright?

IV.

See how from far upon the eastern road
The star-led wifards haste with odors sweet:
O run, prevent them with thy humble ode,
And lay it lowly at his blessed feet ;
Have thou the honor first, thy Lord to greet,

1645, Compos'd 1629, fo that Milton was
then 21 years old. He fpeaks of this poem
in the conclufion of his fixth elegy to Charles
Deodati and it was probably made as an

20

25

And

exercife at Cambridge; and there is not only
great learning shown in it, but likewife a fine
vein of
poetry.

Tt2

28. From