43

IL PENSEROSO.

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.

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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 starr'd Ethiop queen that strove
To set her beauties' praise above

The sea-nymphs, and their powers offended;
Yet thou art higher far descended;
Thee bright-hair'd 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,
While 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 Cyprus lawn,
Over thy decent shoulders drawn.
Come, but keep thy wonted state,

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With even step, and musing gait,

And looks commercing with the skies,

19. Ethiop queen; Cassiope, who was so beautiful that the Nereids determined on her destruction. She was carried, it is said, to the skies, and made a star of: hence the epithet.

And join with thee calm Peace and Quiet
Spare Fast, that oft with Gods doth diet,
And hears the Muses in a ring
Ay 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;

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 Heav'n's wide pathless way;
And oft, as if her head she bow'd,
Stooping through a fleecy cloud.

Oft, on a plat of rising ground,
. I hear the far-off curfeu sound,
Over some wide-water'd 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 belman's drowsy charm,

To bless the doors from nightly harm:

36. The cheerful character of the former poem rendered it necessary to commence with a description of morning sights an uleasures; in 'his the poet properly begins with evening.

Or let my lamp, at midnight hour,
Be seen in some high louely tower,
Where I may oft out-watch the Bear,
With thrice great Hermes, or unsphere
The spirit of Plato to unfold

What worlds, or what vast regions, hold
Th' immortal mind that hath forsook
Her mansion in this fleshly nook:
And of those Demons that are found
In fire, air, flood, or under ground,
Whose power hath a true consent
With planet, or with element.
Sometime let gorgeous Tragedy
In scepter'd pall come sweeping by,
Presenting Thebes', or Pelop's line,
Or the tale of Troy divine,

Or what (though rare) of later age
Ennobled hath the buskin'd stage.

But, O sad Virgin, that thy power
Might raise Museus from his bower;
Or bid the soul of Orpheus sing

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Such notes as, warbled to the string,

That own'd the virtuous ring and glass,
And of the wondrous horse of brass,

88. Hermes Trismegistus. The great Egyptian philosopher

who flourished, it is supposed, near the time of Moses. 99. The ancient tragedians drew the subjects of their principal dramas from the history of the kings of Thebes, &c.

104. Museus, a celebrated ancient poet.

109. An allusion to a tale which Chaucer left unfinished. Spenser endeavoured to complete it. Fae. Qu. B. 4. Can. 2. St. 32.

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