Or whether (as fome fager fing)
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 wash'd in dew,
Fill'd her with thee a daughter fair,
So buxom, blithe, and debonair.
Hafte thee Nymph, and bring with thee
Jeft 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 în dimple fleek;
Sport that wrinkled Care derides,
And Laughter holding both his fides.
Come, and trip it as you go
On the light fantastic toe,
And in thy right hand lead with thee,
The mountain nymph, fweet Liberty;
And if I give thee honor 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 finging startle the dull night,
From his watch-tow'r in the skies,
Till the dappled dawn doth rife
Then to come in fpite of forrow,
And at my window bid good morrow,
Through the fweet 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 ftruts his dames before:

;

25

૩૦

35

40

45

50

Oft

Oft lift'ning how the hounds and horn
Chearly roufe the flumb'ring morn,
From the fide of fome hoar hill,
Through the high wood echoing fhrill:
Some time walking not unfeen
By hedge-row elms, on hillocs green,
Right against the eastern gate,
Where the great fun begins his state,
Rob'd in flames, and amber light,
The clouds in thousand liveries dight,
While the plow-man near at hand
Whistles o'er the furrow'd land,
And the milkmaid fingeth blithe,
And the mower whets his fithe,
And every fhepherd tells his tale
Under the hawthorn in the dale.
Strait mine eye hath caught new pleasures
Whilft the landskip round it measures,
Ruffet lawns, and fallows gray,
Where the nibbling flocks do ftray,
Mountains on whose barren breast
The lab'ring clouds do often reft,
Meadows trim with daifies pied,
Shallow brooks, and rivers wide.
Towers and battlements it fees
Bofom'd high in tufted trees,
Where perhaps fome beauty lies,
The Cynofure of neighb'ring eyes.
Hard by, a cottage chimney fiokes,
From betwixt two aged oaks,
Where Corydon and Thyrfis met,
Are at their favory dinner fet
Of herbs, and other country meffes,
Which the neat-handed Phillis dreffes;
And then in hafte her bow'r fhe leaves,
With Theftylis to bind the fheaves;

55

бо

65

70%

75

80

85

Or

Or if the earlier feafon lead

To the tann'd haycock in the mead.
Sometimes with fecure delight
The upland hamlets will invite,
When the merry bells ring round,
And the jocond rebecs sound
To many a youth, and many a maid,
Dancing in the chequer'd fhade:
And young and old come forth to play
On a funfhine holy-day,
Till the live-long day-light fail;
Then to the fpicy nut-brown ale,
With stories told of many a feat,
How faery Mab the junkets eat,
She was pincht, and pull'd the faid,
And he by friers lanthorn led
Tells how the drudging Goblin fwet,
To earn his cream-bowl duly fet,
When in one night, ere glimpte of morn,
His fhadowy flale hath thref'd the corn,
That ten day lab'rers could not end
Then lies him down the lubbar fiend,
And stretch'd out all the chimney's length,
Basks at the fire his hairy ftrength,
And crop-full out of doors he flings,
Ere the first cock his matin rings.
Thus done the tales, to bed they creep,
By whifp ring winds foon lull'd afleep.
Towred cities please us then,
And the bufy hum of men,
Where throngs of knights and barons bold
In weeds of peace high triumphs hold,
With ftore of ladies, whofe bright eyes
Rain influence, and judge the prize
Of wit, or ams, while both contend
To win her grace, whom all commend:

;

There let Hymen oft appear
In faffron robe, with taper clear,
And pomp, and feast, and revelry,
With mark, and antique pageantry,
Such fights as youthful poets dream
On fummer eves by haunted stream.
Then to the well-trod stage anon,
If Johnson's learned fock be on,
Or fweeteft Shakespear, fancy's child,
Warble his native wood-notes wild.
And ever against eating cares,
Lap me in foft Lydian airs,
Married to immortal verse,
Such as the meeting foul 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 ty
The hidden foul of harmony;

That Orpheus felf may heave his head
From golden flumber on a bed
Of heapt Elyfian flow'rs, and hear
Such ftrains as would have won the ear
Of Pluto, to have quite set free
His half regain'd Eurydice.
Thefe delights, if thou canst give,
Mirth, with thee I mean to live.

XIV.

IL PENSEROSO.

H

ENCE vain deluding joys,
The brood of folly without father bred,
How little you befted,

Or fill the fixed mind with all your toys?

Dwell

Dwell in fome idle brain,

5

And fancies fond with gaudy fhapes poffefs, As thick and numberless

As the gay motes that people the fun-beams,
Or likeft hovering dreams

The fickle penfioners of Morpheus train.
But hail thou Goddess, fage and holy,
Hail divineft Melancholy,
Whofe faintly visage is too bright
To hit the sense of human sight,
And therefore to our weaker view
O'er laid with black, ftaid wisdom's hue;
Black, but fuch as in efteem
Prince Memnon's fifter might beseem,
Or that starred Ethiop queen that ftrove
To fet her beauties praise above
The Sea-Nymphs, and their pow'rs offended:
Yet thou art higher far defcended,
Thee bright-hair'd Vesta long of yore
To folitary Saturn bore;

His daughter fhe (in Saturn's reign,
Such mixture was not held a stain).
Oft in glimmering bow'rs and glades
He met her, and in fecret fhades
Of woody Ida's inmost grove,
While yet there was no fear of Jove.
Come penfive Nun, devout and
pure,
Sober, ftedfast, and demure,
All in a robe of darkest grain,
Flowing with majestic train,
And fable ftole of Cyprus lawn,
Over thy decent fhoulders drawn.
Come, but keep thy wonted state,
With even step, and mufing gate,
And looks commercing with the skies,
Thy rapt foul fitting in thine eyes:

10

15

25

૩૦

35

4.0 There