The Poetical Works of John Milton ...

Or else the ways being foul, twenty to one,
He's here stuck in a slough and overthrown.
'Twas such a shifter, that, if truth were known, 5
Death was half glad when he had got him down;
For he had, any time this ten years full,
Dodg'd with him, betwixt Cambridge and the Bull.
And surely Death could never have prevail'd,
Had not his weekly course of carriage fail'd;
But lately finding him so long at home,
And thinking now his journey's end was come,
And that he had ta'en up his latest inn;

In the kind office of a chamberlain

ARCADES.*

Part of an Entertainment presented to the Countess Dowager of Derby at Harefield, by some noble persons of her family, who appear on the scene in pastoral habit, moving toward the seat of state, with this Song.

I. SONG.

LOOK, Nymphs and Shepherds, look, What sudden blaze of majesty

Is that which we from hence descry,

Show'd him his room where he must lodge that Too divine to be mistook:

night,

Pull'd off his boots, and took away the light: If any ask for him, it shall be said,

Hobson has supp'd, and's newly gone to bed.'

ANOTHER ON THE SAME.

HERE lieth one, who did most truly prove
That he could never die, while he could move;
So hung his destiny, never to rot
While he might still jog on and keep his trot,
Made of sphere-metal, never to decay
Until his revolution was at stay.

This, this is she

To whom our vows and wishes bend; Here our solemn search hath end.

Who had thought this clime had held A deity so unparallel'd?

Time numbers motion, yet (without a crime
'Gainst old truth) motion number'd out his time:
And, like an engine mov'd with wheel and weight,
His principles being ceas'd, he ended straight. 10
Rest, that gives all men life, gave him his death,
And too much breathing put him out of breath;
Nor were it contradiction to affirm,

Too long vacation hasten'd on his term.
Merely to drive the time away he sicken'd,
15
Fainted, and died, nor would with ale be quicken'd;
Nay,' quoth he, on his swooning bed out-stretch'd,
'If mayn't carry, sure I'll ne'er be fetch'd,

But vow, though the cross doctors all stood hearers,
For one carrier put down to make six bearers.' 20
Ease was his chief disease; and, to judge right,
He died for heaviness that his cart went light;
His leisure told him that his time was come,
And lack of load made his life burdensome,

Hobson was a carrier, and the first man in this island who let out hackney-horses. He lived in Cambridge; and observing that the scholars rid hard, his manner was, to keep a large stable of horses, with boots, bridles, and whips, to furnish the gentlemen at once, without going from college to college to borrow, as they have done since the death of this worthy man: I say, Mr. Hobson kept a stable of forty good cattle, always ready and fit for travelling: but when a man came for a horse, he was led into the stable, where there was great choice; but he obliged him to take the horse which stood next to the stable-door, so that every customer was alike well served, according to his chance, and every horse ridden with the same justice. From whence it became a proverb, when what ought to be your election was forced upon you, to say, Hobson's choice. This memorable man stands drawn in fresco at an inn (which he used) in Bishopsgate-street, with a hundred pound bag under his arm, with this inscription upon the said bag,

The fruitful mother of a hundred more."

As they come forward, the Genius of the Wood appears, and turning towards them, speaks.

GENIUS.

STAY, gentle Swains; for, though in this disguise,
I see bright honour sparkle through your eyes;
Of famous Arcady ye are, and sprung
Of that renowned flood, so often sung,
Divine Alpheus, who by secret sluice
Stole under seas to meet his Arethuse;
And ye, the breathing roses of the wood,
Fair, silver-buskin'd Nymphs, as great and good;
I know, this quest of yours, and free intent,
Was all in honour and devotion meant
To the great mistress of yon princely shrine,
Whom with low reverence I I adore adore as mine;
And with all helpful service will comply,
To further this night's glad solemnity;
And lead ye, where ye may more near behold 40
What shallow-searching Fame hath left untold;
Which I full oft, amidst these shades alone,
Have sat to wonder at, and gaze upon:
For know, by lot from Jove, I am the Power
Of this fair wood, and live in oaken bower,
To nurse the saplings tall, and curl the grove
With ringlets quaint, and wanton windings wove.
And all my plants I save from nightly ill
Of noisome winds, and blasting vapours chill:

must

* This poem is only part of an Entertainment, or Mask, the rest probably being of a different nature, or composed by a different hand. This Countess Dowager of Derby, to whom it was presented, have been Alice, daughter of Sir John Spencer of Althorp, Northamptonshire, and widow of Ferdinando Stanley, the fifth Earl of Derby. And as Harefield is in Middlesex, and, according to Camden, lieth a little to the north of Uxbridge, we may conclude, that Milton made this po poem while he resided in that neighbourhood with his father at Horton near Colebrooke. It should seem too, that it was made before the Mask at Ludlow, as it is a more imperfect essay. And Frances, the second daughter of this Countess-dowager of Derby, being married to John Earl of Bridgewater, before whom was presented the Mask at Ludlow, we may con ceive in some measure how Milton was, induced to compose the one after the other. The alliance between the families naturally and easily accounts for it: and in all probability, the Genius of the wood in this poem, as well as the attendant Spirit in the Mask, was Mr. Henry Lawes, who was the great master of music at that time, and taught most of the young nobility.

And from the boughs brush off the evil dew,
And heal the arms of thwarting thunder blue,
Or what the cross, dire-looking planet smites,
Or hurtful worm with canker'd venom bites.
When evening gray doth rise, I fetch my round
Over the mount, and all this hallow'd ground; 55
And early, ere the odorous breath of morn
Awakes the slumb'ring leaves, or tassel'd horn
Shakes the high thicket, haste I

all about,

50 Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year: 6
Bitter constraint, and sad occasion dear,
Compels me to disturb your season due :
For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime,
Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer:
Who would not sing for Lycidas ? he knew
Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme.
He must not float upon his watery bier
Unwept, and welter to the parching wind,
Without the meed of some melodious tear.
Begin then, Sisters of the sacred well,
That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring;
Begin, and somewhat loudly sweep the string.
Hence with denial vain, and coy excuse:
So may some gentle Muse

Number my ranks, and visit every sprout
With puissant words, and murmurs made to bless:
But else in deep of night, when drowsiness
Hath lock'd up mortal sense, then listen I
To the celestial Syrens' harmony,

That sit upon the nine infolded spheres,

And sing to those that hold the vital shears,
And turn the adamantine spindle round,
On which the fate of Gods and Men is wound.
Such sweet compulsion doth in music lie,
To lull the daughters of Necessity,
And keep unsteady Nature to her

to her law, measur'd motion draw

And the low world in
After the heavenly tune, which none can hear
Of human mold with gross, unpurged ear;
And yet such music worthiest were to blaze
The peerless height of her immortal praise,
Whose lustre leads us, and for her most fit,
If my inferior hand or voice could hit
Inimitable sounds: yet, as we go,
Whate'er the skill of lesser gods can show,
I will assay, her worth to celebrate,
And so attend ye toward her glittering state;
Where ye may all, that are of noble stem,
Approach, and kiss her sacred vesture's hem.

65 With lucky words favour my destin'd urn;
And, as he passes, turn,
And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud.
For we were nurs'd upon the self-same hill,
Fed the same flock by fountain, shade, and rill.

70 Together both, ere the high lawns appear'd

Under the opening eye-lids of the morn,
We drove afield, and both together heard
What time the gray-fly winds her sultry horn,
Battening our flocks, with the fresh dews of night,
75 Oft till the star that rose at evening, bright,
Tow'ard Heaven's descent had slop'd his west'ring

wheel.

Meanwhile the rural ditties were not mute,
Temper'd to th' oaten flute;

80 Rough Satyrs danc'd, and Fawns with cloven heel From the glad sound would not be absent long; 35 And old Damætas lov'd to hear our song.

But, O the heavy change, now thou art gone,

Now thou art gone, and never must return!
Thee, Shepherd, thee the woods, and desert

caves,

With wild thyme and the gadding vine o'ergrown,

85 And all their echoes mourn:

The willows, and hazel copses green,

Shall now no more be seen,

Fanning their joyous leaves to thy soft lays.

As killing as the canker to the rose,

90 Or taint-worm to the weanling-herds

that graze,

Or frost to flowers, that their gay wardrobe wear,
When first the white-thorn blows;

Such, Lycidas, thy loss to shepherds' ear.

Where were ye, Nymphs, when the remorseless

deep

Clos'd o'er the head of your lov'd Lycidas?
For neither were ye playing on the steep,
Where your old bards, the famous Druids, lie,
Nor on the shaggy top of Mona high,
Nor yet where Deva spreads her wizard stream: 55
Ay me! I fondly dream!

Had ye ye been there for what could that have done?
100 What could the Muse herself that Orpheus bore,
The Muse herself, for her enchanting son,
Whom universal Nature did lament,
When, by the rout that made the hideous roar,
His gory visage down the stream was sent,
105 Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore ?
Alas! what boots it with incessant care
To tend the homely, slighted shepherd's trade, 65
And strictly meditate the thankless Muse?
Were it rot better done, as others use,

In this Monody, the author bewails a learned friend,
unfortunately drowned in his passage from Chester
on the Irish seas, 1637: and by occasion foretells
the ruin of our corrupted clergy, then in their height.

YET once more, O ye laurels, and once more
Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never-sere,
I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude;
And, with forc'd fingers rude,

he was

This poem was made upon the unfortunate and untimely death of Mr. Edward King, son of Sir John King, Secretary for Ireland, a fellow-collegian and intimate friend of Milton, who, as going to visit his relations in Ireland, was drowned Aug. 10, 1637, in the 25th year of his age. poem is with great judgment made of the pastoral This kind, as both Mr. King and Milton had been designed for holy orders and the pastoral care, which gives a peculiar propriety to several passages in it.

To scorn delights, and live laborious days;
But the fair guerdon when we hope to find,
And think to burst out into sudden blaze,
Comes the blind Fury with th' abhorred shears,
And slits the thin-spun life. But not the praise,
Phœbus replied, and touch'd my trembling ears;
Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil,
Nor in the glist'ring foil,

Set off to the world, nor in broad rumour lies; 80
But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes,
As he pronounces lastly on each deed,
And perfect witness of all-judging Jove
Of so much fame in Heaven expect thy meed. 84

O fountain Arethuse, and thou honour'd flood,
That strain I heard was of a higher mood:
Smooth-sliding Mincius, crown'd with vocal reeds,
But now my oat proceeds,

A sheep-hook, or have learn'd aught else the least
That to the faithful herdman's art belongs;
What recks it them? What need they? They are
sped;

130

And, when they list, their lean and flashy songs
Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched strew;
The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed, 125
But, swoln with wind, and the rank mist they draw,
Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread:
Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw
Daily devours apace, and nothing said:
But that two-handed engine at the door
Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more.
Return, Alpheus, the dread voice is past,
That shrunk thy streams; return, Sicilian Muse,
And call the vales, and bid them hither cast
Their bells and flowerets of a thousand hues. 135
Ye valleys low, where the mild whispers use
Of shades, and wanton winds, and gushing brooks,
On whose fresh lap the swart-star sparely looks,
Throw hither all your quaint enamell'd eyes, 139
That on the green-turf suck the honied showers,
And purple all the ground with vernal flowers.
Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies,
The tufted crow-toe, and pale jessamine,

The white pink, and the pansy freak'd with jet,
The glowing violet,

The musk-rose, and the well attir'd woodbine,
With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head,
And every flower that sad embroidery wears:
Bid amaranthus all his beauty shed,

And daffodillies fill their cups with tears,
To strew the Laureat herse where Lycid lies.

For, so to interpose a little ease,

145

150

Let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise.
Ay me! whilst thee the shores and sounding seas
Wash far away, where'er thy bones are hurl'd, 155
Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides,
Where thou perhaps under the whelming tide
Visit'st the bottom of the monstrous world;
Or whether thou, to our moist vows denied,
Sleep'st by the fable of Bellerus old,
Where the great Vision of the guarded Mount,
Looks tow'rd Namancos and Bayona's hold;
Look homeward, Angel, now, and melt with ruth;
O ye dolphins, waft the hapless youth.
Weep no more, woeful shepherds, weep no

And,

more,

160

165

171

For Lycidas, your sorrow, is not dead,
Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor;
So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed,
And yet anon repairs his drooping head,
And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore
Flames in the forehead of the morning sky:
So Lycidas sunk low, but mounted high, [waves,
Through the dear might of Him that walk'd the
Where other groves and other streams along.
With nectar pure his oozy locks he laves,
And hears th' unexpressive nuptial song,
In the bless'd kingdoms meek of joy and love.
There entertain him all the saints above,

In solemn troops, and sweet societies,

175

ON THE NEW FORCERS OF CONSCIENCE
UNDER THE LONG PARLIAMENT.*
BECAUSE you have thrown off your Prelate-Lord,
And with stiff vows renounc'd his Liturgy,
To seize the widow'd whore Plurality

From them whose sin ye envied, not abhorr'd;
Dare ye for this abjure the civil sword

To force our consciences that Christ set free, And ride us with a classic hierarchy, † Taught ye by mere A. S. and Rotherford ? + Men, whose life, learning, faith, and pure intent, Would have been held in high esteem with Paul, Must now be named and printed Heretics

By shallow Edwards and Scotch what d'ye call:
But we do hope to find out all your tricks,
Your plots and packing worse than those of Trent;

That so the Parliament May, with their wholesome and preventive shears, Clip your phylacteries, though balk your ears, And succour our just fears, When they shall read this clearly in your charge, New Presbyter is but Old Priest writ large.'

THE FIFTH ODE OF HORACE, Lib. I.

To whom thou' untried seem'st fair! Me, in my
Picture, the sacred wall declares to' have hung
My dank and dropping weeds
To the stern god of sea.

This poem is supposed to have been made when the Directory was established, and disputes ran high between the Presbyterians and Independents in 1645, the latter pleading for a toleration, and the former against it.

+ In the Presbyterian form of government there are congregational, classical, provincial, and na tional assemblies.

It is not known who is meant by A. S. Mr. Samuel Rotherford was Professor of Divinity at St. Andrew's, and one of the Scotch commissioners to the Westminster assembly.

Mr. Thomas Edwards, author of the Gangrana.
Either Mr. Alexander Henderson or ir.

That sing, and, singing, in their glory move, 180 George Gillespie, both commissioners to the WestAnd wipe the tears for ever from his

eyes.

minster assembly.

ON HIS BEING ARRIVED TO THE AGE
OF TWENTY-THREE.

HOW soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth,
Stol'n on his wing my three-and-twentieth year!
My hasting days fly on with full career,
But my late spring no bud or blossom shew'th.
Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth, 5
That I to manhood am arriv'd so near;
And inward ripeness doth much less appear,
That some more timely-happy spirits endu'th.

Yet be it less or more, or soon or slow,

It shall be still in strictest measure even To that same lot, however mean or high, [ven; Toward which Time leads me, and the Will of HeaAll is, if I have grace to use it so,

As ever in my great Task-Master's eye.

Manuscript, To the Lady Margaret Ley. She was * We have given the title which is in Milton's the daughter of Sir James Ley, whose singular learning and abilities raised him through all the great posts of the law, till he came to be made Earl of Marlborough, and Lord High Treasurer, and He died in an advanced age, and Milton attributes Lord President of the Council to King James L.

his death to the breaking of the parliament; and it is true that the parliament was dissolved the 10th of March, 1628-9, 9, and he died on the 14th of the same month. He left several sons and daughters; and the Lady Margaret was married to Captain Hobson of the Isle of Wight. It appears from the accounts of Milton's life, that in the year 1643. he used frequently to visit this lady and her husband, net was composed. and about that time we may suppose that this son

When Milton published his book of Divorce, he was greatly condemned by the Presbyterian ministers, whose advocate and champion he had

TO THE LORD GENERAL FAIRFAX. FAIRFAX, whose name in arms through Europe

rings,

Filling each mouth with envy or with praise, And all her jealous monarchs with amaze And rumours loud, that daunt remotest kings; Thy firm, unshaken virtue, ever brings Victory home, though new rebellions raise Their Hydra heads, and the false North displays Her broken league, to imp their serpent wings. O yet a nobler task awaits thy hand,

(For what can war but endless war still breed?)' Till truth and right from violence be freed, 11 And public faith clear'd from the shameful brand Of public fraud. In vain doth valour bleed, While Avarice and Rapine share the land.

TO Mr. H. LAWES, ON HIS AIRS, 1645. HARRY, whose tuneful and well-measur'd song First taught our English music how to span Words with just note and accent, not to scan With Midas' ears, committing short and long; Thy worth and skill exempts thee from the throng, With praise enough for Envy to look wan; To after age thou shalt be writ the man, That with smooth air could humour best our [wing Thou honour'st verse, and verse must lend her To honour thee, the priest of Phœbus' quire, 10 That tun'st their happiest lines in hymn, or story.

tongue.

Dante shall give Fame leave to set thee higher Than his Casella, whom he woo'd to sing Met in the milder shades of Purgatory.

been before. He published his Tetrachordon, or Expositions upon the four chief places in Scripture, which treat of marriage, or nullities in marriage, in 1645.

"We may suppose, (says Dr. Newton) that these were persons of note and eminence among the Scotch ministers who were for pressing and enforcing the covenant." Mr. George Gillespie, here wrongously named Galasp, was one of the Scotch commissioners to the Westminster assembly. But who the other persons were is not known. It appears from this sonnet, and the verses on the forcers of conscience, that Milton treats the Presbyterians with great contempt.

+ This Gentleman was the first Professor of the Greek tongue in the University of Cambridge, and was highly instrumental in bringing that language into repute. He was afterwards made one of the tutors to Edward VI.

This Mr. Henry Lawes was a gentleman of the king's chapel, and of his one and an intimate friend of Milton.

band and of music, musi

"Who this Mrs. Thomson was, (says Dr. New

ton) we cannot be certain; but I find in the ac

TO SIR HENRY VANE THE YOUNGER.

VANE, young in years, but in sage counsel old,
Than whom a better senator ne'er held [pell'd
The helm of Rome, when gowns, not arms, re-
The fierce Epirot, and th' African bold,
Whether to settle peace, or to unfold
The drift of hollow States hard to be spell'd;
Then to advise how War may, best upheld,
Move by her two main nerves, iron and gold,
In all her equipage: besides to know
Both spiritual power and civil, what each means,
What severs each, thou hast learn'd, which few

have done:

The bounds of either sword to thee we owe; Therefore on thy firm hand religion leans In peace, and reckons thee her eldest son.

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