



Produced by Edward A. Malone








  L'ALLEGRO, IL PENSEROSO, COMUS, AND LYCIDAS

  By

  John Milton



  L'ALLEGRO


  HENCE, loathed Melancholy,
 ............Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born
  In Stygian cave forlorn
 ............'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights
  unholy!
  Find out some uncouth cell,
 ............Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings,
  And the night-raven sings;
 ............There, under ebon shades and low-browed rocks,
  As ragged as thy locks,
 ............In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell.
  But come, thou Goddess fair and free,
  In heaven yclept Euphrosyne,
  And by men heart-easing Mirth;
  Whom lovely Venus, at a birth,
  With two sister Graces more,
  To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore:
  Or whether (as some sager sing)
  The frolic wind that breathes the spring,
  Zephyr, with Aurora playing,
  As he met her once a-Maying,
  There, on beds of violets blue,
  And fresh-blown roses washed in dew,
  Filled her with thee, a daughter fair,
  So buxom, blithe, and debonair.
  Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee
  Jest, and youthful Jollity,
  Quips and cranks and wanton wiles,
  Nods and becks and wreathed smiles
  Such as hang on Hebe's cheek,
  And love to live in dimple sleek;
  Sport that wrinkled Care derides,
  And Laughter holding both his sides.
  Come, and trip it, as you go,
  On the light fantastic toe;
  And in thy right hand lead with thee
  The mountain-nymph, sweet Liberty;
  And, if I give thee honour due,
  Mirth, admit me of thy crew,
  To live with her, and live with thee,
  In unreproved pleasures free:
  To hear the lark begin his flight,
  And, singing, startle the dull night,
  From his watch-tower in the skies,
  Till the dappled dawn doth rise;
  Then to come, in spite of sorrow,
  And at my window bid good-morrow,
  Through the sweet-briar or the vine,
  Or the twisted eglantine;
  While the cock, with lively din,
  Scatters the rear of darkness thin,
  And to the stack, or the barn-door,
  Stoutly struts his dames before:
  Oft listening how the hounds and horn
  Cheerly rouse the slumbering morn,
  From the side of some hoar hill,
  Through the high wood echoing shrill:
  Sometime walking, not unseen,
  By hedgerow elms, on hillocks green,
  Right against the eastern gate
  Where the great Sun begins his state,
  Robed in flames and amber light,
  The clouds in thousand liveries dight;
  While the ploughman, near at hand,
  Whistles o'er the furrowed land,
  And the milkmaid singeth blithe,
  And the mower whets his scythe,
  And every shepherd tells his tale
  Under the hawthorn in the dale.
  Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures,
  Whilst the landskip round it measures:
  Russet lawns, and fallows grey,
  Where the nibbling flocks do stray;
  Mountains on whose barren breast
  The labouring clouds do often rest;
  Meadows trim, with daisies pied;
  Shallow brooks, and rivers wide;
  Towers and battlements it sees
  Bosomed high in tufted trees,
  Where perhaps some beauty lies,
  The cynosure of neighbouring eyes.
  Hard by a cottage chimney smokes
  From betwixt two aged oaks,
  Where Corydon and Thyrsis met
  Are at their savoury dinner set
  Of herbs and other country messes,
  Which the neat-handed Phyllis dresses;
  And then in haste her bower she leaves,
  With Thestylis to bind the sheaves;
  Or, if the earlier season lead,
  To the tanned haycock in the mead.
  Sometimes, with secure delight,
  The upland hamlets will invite,
  When the merry bells ring round,
  And the jocund rebecks sound
  To many a youth and many a maid
  Dancing in the chequered shade,
  And young and old come forth to play
  On a sunshine holiday,
  Till the livelong daylight fail:
  Then to the spicy nut-brown ale,
  With stories told of many a feat,
  How Faery Mab the junkets eat.
  She was pinched and pulled, she said;
  And he, by Friar's lantern led,
  Tells how the drudging goblin sweat
  To earn his cream-bowl duly set,
  When in one night, ere glimpse of morn,
  His shadowy flail hath threshed the corn
  That ten day-labourers could not end;
  Then lies him down, the lubber fiend,
  And, stretched out all the chimney's length,
  Basks at the fire his hairy strength,
  And crop-full out of doors he flings,
  Ere the first cock his matin rings.
  Thus done the tales, to bed they creep,
  By whispering winds soon lulled asleep.
  Towered cities please us then,
  And the busy hum of men,
  Where throngs of knights and barons bold,
  In weeds of peace, high triumphs hold
  With store of ladies, whose bright eyes
  Rain influence, and judge the prize
  Of wit or arms, while both contend
  To win her grace whom all commend.
  There let Hymen oft appear
  In saffron robe, with taper clear,
  And pomp, and feast, and revelry,
  With mask and antique pageantry;
  Such sights as youthful poets dream
  On summer eves by haunted stream.
  Then to the well-trod stage anon,
  If Jonson's learned sock be on,
  Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child,
  Warble his native wood-notes wild.
  And ever, against eating cares,
  Lap me in soft Lydian airs,
  Married to immortal verse,
  Such as the meeting soul may pierce,
  In notes with many a winding bout
  Of linked sweetness long drawn out
  With wanton heed and giddy cunning,
  The melting voice through mazes running,
  Untwisting all the chains that tie
  The hidden soul of harmony;
  That Orpheus' self may heave his head
  From golden slumber on a bed
  Of heaped Elysian flowers, and hear
  Such strains as would have won the ear
  Of Pluto to have quite set free
  His half-regained Eurydice.
  These delights if thou canst give,
  Mirth, with thee I mean to live.



  IL PENSEROSO


  HENCE, vain deluding Joys,
 ............The brood of Folly without father bred!
  How little you bested
 ............Or fill the fixed mind with all your toys!
  Dwell in some idle brain,
 ............And fancies fond with gaudy shapes possess,
  As thick and numberless
 ............As the gay motes that people the sun-beams,
  Or likest hovering dreams,
 ............The fickle pensioners of Morpheus' train.
  But, hail! thou Goddess sage and holy!
  Hail, divinest Melancholy!
  Whose saintly visage is too bright
  To hit the sense of human sight,
  And therefore to our weaker view
  O'erlaid with black, staid Wisdom's hue;
  Black, but such as in esteem
  Prince Memnon's sister might beseem,
  Or that starred Ethiop queen that strove
  To set her beauty's praise above
  The Sea-Nymphs, and their powers offended.
  Yet thou art higher far descended:
  Thee bright-haired Vesta long of yore
  To solitary Saturn bore;
  His daughter she; in Saturn's reign
  Such mixture was not held a stain.
  Oft in glimmering bowers and glades
  He met her, and in secret shades
  Of woody Ida's inmost grove,
  Whilst yet there was no fear of Jove.
  Come, pensive Nun, devout and pure,
  Sober, steadfast, and demure,
  All in a robe of darkest grain,
  Flowing with majestic train,
  And sable stole of cypress lawn
  Over thy decent shoulders drawn.
  Come; but keep thy wonted state,
  With even step, and musing gait,
  And looks commercing with the skies,
  Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes:
  There, held in holy passion still,
  Forget thyself to marble, till
  With a sad leaden downward cast
  Thou fix them on the earth as fast.
  And join with thee calm Peace and Quiet,
  Spare Fast, that oft with gods doth diet,
  And hears the Muses in a ring
  Aye round about Jove's altar sing;
  And add to these retired Leisure,
  That in trim gardens takes his pleasure;
  But, first and chiefest, with thee bring
  Him that yon soars on golden wing,
  Guiding the fiery-wheeled throne,
  The Cherub Contemplation;
  And the mute Silence hist along,
  'Less Philomel will deign a song,
  In her sweetest saddest plight,
  Smoothing the rugged brow of Night,
  While Cynthia checks her dragon yoke
  Gently o'er the accustomed oak.
  Sweet bird, that shunn'st the noise of folly,
  Most musical, most melancholy!
  Thee, chauntress, oft the woods among
  I woo, to hear thy even-song;
  And, missing thee, I walk unseen
  On the dry smooth-shaven green,
  To behold the wandering moon,
  Riding near her highest noon,
  Like one that had been led astray
  Through the heaven's wide pathless way,
  And oft, as if her head she bowed,
  Stooping through a fleecy cloud.
  Oft, on a plat of rising ground,
  I hear the far-off curfew sound,
  Over some wide-watered shore,
  Swinging slow with sullen roar;
  Or, if the air will not permit,
  Some still removed place will fit,
  Where glowing embers through the room
  Teach light to counterfeit a gloom,
  Far from all resort of mirth,
  Save the cricket on the hearth,
  Or the bellman's drowsy charm
  To bless the doors from nightly harm.
  Or let my lamp, at midnight hour,
  Be seen in some high lonely tower,
  Where I may oft outwatch the Bear,
  With thrice great Hermes, or unsphere
  The spirit of Plato, to unfold
  What worlds or what vast regions hold
  The immortal mind that hath forsook
  Her mansion in this fleshly nook;
  And of those demons that are found
  In fire, air, flood, or underground,
  Whose power hath a true consent
  With planet or with element.
  Sometime let gorgeous Tragedy
  In sceptred pall come sweeping by,
  Presenting Thebes, or Pelops' line,
  Or the tale of Troy divine,
  Or what (though rare) of later age
  Ennobled hath the buskined stage.
  But, O sad Virgin! that thy power
  Might raise Musaeus from his bower;
  Or bid the soul of Orpheus sing
  Such notes as, warbled to the string,
  Drew iron tears down Pluto's cheek,
  And made Hell grant what love did seek;
  Or call up him that left half-told
  The story of Cambuscan bold,
  Of Camball, and of Algarsife,
  And who had Canace to wife,
  That owned the virtuous ring and glass,
  And of the wondrous horse of brass
  On which the Tartar king did ride;
  And if aught else great bards beside
  In sage and solemn tunes have sung,
  Of turneys, and of trophies hung,
  Of forests, and enchantments drear,
  Where more is meant than meets the ear.
  Thus, Night, oft see me in thy pale career,
  Till civil-suited Morn appear,
  Not tricked and frounced, as she was wont
  With the Attic boy to hunt,
  But kerchieft in a comely cloud
  While rocking winds are piping loud,
  Or ushered with a shower still,
  When the gust hath blown his fill,
  Ending on the rustling leaves,
  With minute-drops from off the eaves.
  And, when the sun begins to fling
  His flaring beams, me, Goddess, bring
  To arched walks of twilight groves,
  And shadows brown, that Sylvan loves,
  Of pine, or monumental oak,
  Where the rude axe with heaved stroke
  Was never heard the nymphs to daunt,
  Or fright them from their hallowed haunt.
  There, in close covert, by some brook,
  Where no profaner eye may look,
  Hide me from day's garish eye,
  While the bee with honeyed thigh,
  That at her flowery work doth sing,
  And the waters murmuring,
  With such consort as they keep,
  Entice the dewy-feathered Sleep.
  And let some strange mysterious dream
  Wave at his wings, in airy stream
  Of lively portraiture displayed,
  Softly on my eyelids laid;
  And, as I wake, sweet music breathe
  Above, about, or underneath,
  Sent by some Spirit to mortals good,
  Or the unseen Genius of the wood.
  But let my due feet never fail
  To walk the studious cloister's pale,
  And love the high embowed roof,
  With antique pillars massy proof,
  And storied windows richly dight,
  Casting a dim religious light.
  There let the pealing organ blow,
  To the full-voiced quire below,
  In service high and anthems clear,
  As may with sweetness, through mine ear,
  Dissolve me into ecstasies,
  And bring all Heaven before mine eyes.
  And may at last my weary age
  Find out the peaceful hermitage,
  The hairy gown and mossy cell,
  Where I may sit and rightly spell
  Of every star that heaven doth shew,
  And every herb that sips the dew,
  Till old experience do attain
  To something like prophetic strain.
  These pleasures, Melancholy, give;
  And I with thee will choose to live.



  COMUS


  A MASQUE PRESENTED AT LUDLOW CASTLE, 1634, BEFORE

  THE EARL OF BRIDGEWATER, THEN PRESIDENT OF WALES.

  The Persons

          The ATTENDANT SPIRIT, afterwards in the habit of THYRSIS.
  COMUS, with his Crew.
  The LADY.
  FIRST BROTHER.
  SECOND BROTHER.
  SABRINA, the Nymph.

  The Chief Persons which presented were:--

  The Lord Brackley;
  Mr. Thomas Egerton, his Brother;
  The Lady Alice Egerton.


  The first Scene discovers a wild wood.
  The ATTENDANT SPIRIT descends or enters.


  BEFORE the starry threshold of Jove's court
  My mansion is, where those immortal shapes
  Of bright aerial spirits live insphered
  In regions mild of calm and serene air,
  Above the smoke and stir of this dim spot
  Which men call Earth, and, with low-thoughted care,
  Confined and pestered in this pinfold here,
  Strive to keep up a frail and feverish being,
  Unmindful of the crown that Virtue gives,
  After this mortal change, to her true servants
  Amongst the enthroned gods on sainted seats.
  Yet some there be that by due steps aspire
  To lay their just hands on that golden key
  That opes the palace of eternity.
  To Such my errand is; and, but for such,
  I would not soil these pure ambrosial weeds
  With the rank vapours of this sin-worn mould.
           But to my task. Neptune, besides the sway
  Of every salt flood and each ebbing stream,
  Took in by lot, 'twixt high and nether Jove,
  Imperial rule of all the sea-girt isles
  That, like to rich and various gems, inlay
  The unadorned bosom of the deep;
  Which he, to grace his tributary gods,
  By course commits to several government,
  And gives them leave to wear their sapphire crowns
  And wield their little tridents. But this Isle,
  The greatest and the best of all the main,
  He quarters to his blue-haired deities;
  And all this tract that fronts the falling sun
  A noble Peer of mickle trust and power
  Has in his charge, with tempered awe to guide
  An old and haughty nation, proud in arms:
  Where his fair offspring, nursed in princely lore,
  Are coming to attend their father's state,
  And new-intrusted sceptre. But their way
  Lies through the perplexed paths of this drear wood,
  The nodding horror of whose shady brows
  Threats the forlorn and wandering passenger;
  And here their tender age might suffer peril,
  But that, by quick command from sovran Jove,
  I was despatched for their defence and guard:
  And listen why; for I will tell you now
  What never yet was heard in tale or song,
  From old or modern bard, in hall or bower.
           Bacchus, that first from out the purple grape
  Crushed the sweet poison of misused wine,
  After the Tuscan mariners transformed,
  Coasting the Tyrrhene shore, as the winds listed,
  On Circe's island fell. (Who knows not Circe,
  The daughter of the Sun, whose charmed cup
  Whoever tasted lost his upright shape,
  And downward fell into a grovelling swine?)
  This Nymph, that gazed upon his clustering locks,
  With ivy berries wreathed, and his blithe youth,
  Had by him, ere he parted thence, a son
  Much like his father, but his mother more,
  Whom therefore she brought up, and Comus named:
  Who, ripe and frolic of his full-grown age,
  Roving the Celtic and Iberian fields,
  At last betakes him to this ominous wood,
  And, in thick shelter of black shades imbowered,
  Excels his mother at her mighty art;
  Offering to every weary traveller
  His orient liquor in a crystal glass,
  To quench the drouth of Phoebus; which as they taste
  (For most do taste through fond intemperate thirst),
  Soon as the potion works, their human count'nance,
  The express resemblance of the gods, is changed
  Into some brutish form of wolf or bear,
  Or ounce or tiger, hog, or bearded goat,
  All other parts remaining as they were.
  And they, so perfect is their misery,
  Not once perceive their foul disfigurement,
  But boast themselves more comely than before,
  And all their friends and native home forget,
  To roll with pleasure in a sensual sty.
  Therefore, when any favoured of high Jove
  Chances to pass through this adventurous glade,
  Swift as the sparkle of a glancing star
  I shoot from heaven, to give him safe convoy,
  As now I do. But first I must put off
  These my sky-robes, spun out of Iris' woof,
  And take the weeds and likeness of a swain
  That to the service of this house belongs,
  Who, with his soft pipe and smooth-dittied song,
  Well knows to still the wild winds when they roar,
  And hush the waving woods; nor of less faith
  And in this office of his mountain watch
  Likeliest, and nearest to the present aid
  Of this occasion. But I hear the tread
  Of hateful steps; I must be viewless now.


  COMUS enters, with a charming-rod in one hand, his glass in the
  other: with him a rout of monsters, headed like sundry sorts of
  wild
  beasts, but otherwise like men and women, their apparel
  glistering.
  They come in making a riotous and unruly noise, with torches in
  their hands.


           COMUS. The star that bids the shepherd fold
  Now the top of heaven doth hold;
  And the gilded car of day
  His glowing axle doth allay
  In the steep Atlantic stream;
  And the <DW72> sun his upward beam
  Shoots against the dusky pole,
  Pacing toward the other goal
  Of his chamber in the east.
  Meanwhile, welcome joy and feast,
  Midnight shout and revelry,
  Tipsy dance and jollity.
  Braid your locks with rosy twine,
  Dropping odours, dropping wine.
  Rigour now is gone to bed;
  And Advice with scrupulous head,
  Strict Age, and sour Severity,
  With their grave saws, in slumber lie.
  We, that are of purer fire,
  Imitate the starry quire,
  Who, in their nightly watchful spheres,
  Lead in swift round the months and years.
  The sounds and seas, with all their finny drove,
  Now to the moon in wavering morrice move;
  And on the tawny sands and shelves
  Trip the pert fairies and the dapper elves.
  By dimpled brook and fountain-brim,
  The wood-nymphs, decked with daisies trim,
  Their merry wakes and pastimes keep:
  What hath night to do with sleep?
  Night hath better sweets to prove;
  Venus now wakes, and wakens Love.
  Come, let us our rights begin;
  'T is only daylight that makes sin,
  Which these dun shades will ne'er report.
  Hail, goddess of nocturnal sport,
