L'ALLEGRO.

HENCE, loathed Melancholy,

Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born

In Stygian cave forlorn

'Mongst horrid shapes and shreiks and sights unholy; Find out som uncouth cell,

Wher brooding Darknes spreads his jealous wings,

And the night-raven sings;

There, under ebon shades and low-brow'd rocks,

As ragged as thy locks,

In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell.

But com, thou Goddess fair and free,
In Heav'n ycleap'd Euphrosyne,
And by men heart-easing Mirth,
Whom lovely Venus at a birth
With two sisters Graces more
To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore;
Or whether (as som sager sing)

The frolick wind that breathes the spring,

Zephir with Aurora playing

As he met her once a Maying,

There on beds of Violet blew

And fresh-blown roses wash in dew

Fill'd her with thee a daughter fair,

So bucksom, blith, and debonair.

Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee

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And, if I give thee honour due,
Mirth, admit me of thy crue

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-towre in the skies,
Till the dappled Dawn doth rise,
Then to com in spight of sorrow,
And at my window bid good morrow
Through the sweetbriar, or the vine,
Or the twisted eglantine,
While the cock with lively din
Scatters the rear of Darknes thin,

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The cynosure of neighbouring eyes.
Hard by, a cottage chimney smokes
From betwixt two aged okes,
Where Corydon and Thyrsis met
Are at their savory dinner set

Of hearbs and other country messes,
Which the neat-handed Phillis dresses;

And then in haste her bowre she leaves,
With Thestylis to bind the sheaves,
Or, if the earlier season lead,
To the tann'd haycock in the mead.
Som times with secure delight
The upland hamlets will invite,
When the merry bells ring round,
And the jocond rebecks sound

To many a youth and many a maid
Dancing in the chequer'd shade!

And young and old com forth to play
On a sunshine holyday,

Till the livelong daylight fail;

Then to the spicy nut-brown ale,

With stories told of many a feat:
How fairy Mab the junkets eat:
She was pincht and pull'd, she sed;
And he, by friars lanthorn led,
Tells how the drudging goblin swet
To ern his cream-bowle duly set,
When in one night, ere glimps of morn,
His shadowy flale hath thresh'd the corn
That ten day-labourers could not end;
Then lies him down the lubbar fend,

And, stretch'd out all the chimney's length,
Basks at the fire his hairy strength,

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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 Goddes 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

Ore laid with black, staid Wisdoms hue-
Black, but such as in esteem

Prince Memnons sister might beseem,

Or that starr'd Ethiope queen that strove

To set her beauties 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 raign
Such mixture was not held a stain);
Oft in glimmering bowres and glades
He met her, and in secret shades
Of woody Ida's inmost grove,
While yet there was no fear of Jove.

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