Dwell in some idle brain,

And fancies fond with gaudy shapes possess,

As thick and numberless

5

As the gay motes that people the sun-beams;

Or likest hovering dreams

The fickle pensioners of Morpheus' train.

10

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

15

Prince Memnon's sister might beseem,

Or that starr'd Ethiop queen that strove

To set her beauties' praise above

20

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,
With even step, and musing gait,

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.

Come,pensive Num, devont and pure.
Sober, steadfast, and demure.
All in a robe of darkest grain,
Flowing with majestic train.

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;

50

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

65

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:

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