Now what god, or demigod,
For Britain's ancient genius moved
(If our afflicted land
Have expiated at length the guilty sloth
Of her degenerate sons)
Shall terminate our impious feuds,
And discipline, with hallowed voice, recall?
Recall the Muses too,
Driven from their ancient seats
In Albion, and well nigh from Albion's shore,
And with keen Phoebean shafts
Piercing the unseemly birds
Whose talons menace us,
Shall drive the harpy race from Helicon afar?
But thou, my book, though thou hast strayed,
Whether by treachery lost,
Or indolent neglect, thy bearer's fault,
From all thy kindred books,
To some dark cell, or cave forlorn,
Where thou endur'st, perhaps,
The chafing of some hard untutored hand,
Be comforted-
For lo! again the splendid hope appears
That thou mayst yet escape
The gulfs of Lethe, and on oary wings
Mount to the everlasting courts of Jove !
Since Rouse desires thee, and complains
That, though by promise his,
Thou yet appear'st not in thy place
Among the literary noble stores
Given to his care,
But, absent, leav'st his numbers incomplete.
He therefore, guardian vigilant
Of that unperishing wealth,
Calls thee to the interior shrine, his charge,
Where he intends a richer treasure far
Than Iön kept (Iön, Erectheus son
Illustrious, of the fair Creusa born)
In the resplendent temple of his god,
Tripods of gold, and Delphic gifts divine.
Haste, then, to the pleasant groves
The Muses' favourite haunt ;
Resume thy station in Apollo's dome.
Dearer to him
Than Delos, or the fork'd Parnassian hill !
Since now a splendid lot is also thine,
And thou art sought by my propitious friend;
For there thou shalt be read
With authors of exalted note,
The ancient glorious lights of Greece and Rome.
Ye then, my works, no longer vain,
And worthless deemed by me!
Whate'er this sterile genius has produced,
Expect, at last, the rage of envy spent,
An unmolested happy home,
Gift of kind Hermes and my watchful friend;
Where never flippant tongue profane
Shall entrance find,
And whence the coarse unlettered multitude
Shall babble far remote.
Perhaps some future distant age,
Less tinged with prejudice and better taught, Shall furnish minds of power
To judge more equally.
Then, malice silenced in the tomb,
Cooler heads and sounder hearts,
Thanks to Rouse, if anght of praise
I merit, shall with candour weigh the claim.
THE opening lines in Comus stood as follows in Milton's original MS.; but the fourteen lines, ensuing after the first four, were crossed out with a pen, apparently to shorten the speech for the actor's convenience :
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,
Amidst th' Hesperian gardens, on whose banks
Bedewed with nectar and celestial songs,
Eternal roses grow, and hyacinth,
And fruits of golden rind, on whose fair tree
The scaly-harnessed dragon ever keeps
His unenchanted eye: around the verge
And sacred limits of this blissful isle,
The jealous Ocean, that old river, winds
His far-extended arms, till with steep fall
Half his waste flood the wild Atlantic fills,
And half the slow unfathomed Stygian pool.
But soft, I was not sent to court your wonder
With distant worlds, and strange removèd climes.
Yet thence I come, and oft from thence behold
Above the smoke and stir of this dim spot,
Which men call Earth, &c., &c.
THE following epitaph has been attributed to Milton, not without some plausibility, although its genuineness is very dubious:
HE whom Heaven did call away
Out of this hermitage of clay
Has left some relics in this urn
As a pledge of his return.
Meanwhile the Muses do deplore
The loss of this their paramour,—
With whom he sported ere the day
Budded forth its tender ray.
And now Apollo leaves his lays,
And puts on cypress for his bays.
The Sacred Sisters tune their quills
Only to the blubbering rills;
And, whilst his doom they think upon,
Make their own tears their Helicon,-
Leaving the two-topt mount divine,
To turn votaries to his shrine.
Think not, reader, me less blest,
Sleeping in this narrow cist
Than if my ashes did lie h
Under some stately pyramid.
If a rich tomb makes happy, then
That bee was happier far than men,
Who busy in the thymy wood
Was fettered by the golden flood
Which from the amber-weeping tree
Distilleth down so plenteously:
For so this little wanton elf
Most gloriously enshrined itself :
A tomb whose beauty might compare
With Cleopatra's sepulchre.
In this little bed my dust
Incurtained round I here intrust,
Whilst my more pure and nobler part
Lies entombed in every heart.
Then pass on gently, ye that mourn,
Touch not this mine hollowed urn.
These ashes which do here remain
A vital tincture still retain ;
A seminal form within the deeps
Of this little chaos sleeps.
The thread of life untwisted is
Into its first existencies:
Infant Nature cradled here
In its principles appear.
This plant th[us] calcined into dust
In its ashes rest it must,
Until sweet Psyche shall inspire
A softening and p[ro]lific fire,
And in her fostering arms enfold
This heavy and this earthly mould.
Then as I am I'll be no more,
But bloom and blossom b...
When this cold numbness shall retreat
By a more than chymic heat.
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