The lonely mountains o'er,
And the resounding shore,

A voice of weeping heard, and loud lament;
From haunted spring and dale,
Edged with poplar pale,

The parting genius is with sighing sent:
With flower-inwoven tresses torn,

The nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn.

In consecrated earth,

And on the holy hearth,

The Lars and Lemures moan with midnight plaint; In urns, and altars round,

A drear and dying sound

Affrights the Flamens at their service quaint!

And the chill marble seems to sweat,

While each peculiar power foregoes his wonted seat.

Peor and Baalim

Forsake their temples dim,

With that twice-battered god1 of Palestine; And mooned Ashtaroth,

Heaven's queen and mother both,

Now sits not girt with tapers' holy shine; The Libyc Hammon shrinks his horn;

In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammus

mourn.

And sullen Moloch, fled,

Hath left in shadows dread

His burning idol all of blackest hue;

In vain with cymbals' ring

They call the grisly king,

In dismal dance about the furnace blue;
The brutish gods of Nile as fast,
Isis, and Orus, and the dog Anubis, haste.

1 Dagon. See 1 Samuel v.

Nor is Osiris seen

In Memphian grove or green,

Trampling the unshower'd grass with lowings loud : Nor can he be at rest

Within his sacred chest ;

Nought but profoundest hell can be his shroud:
In vain with timbrell'd anthems dark
The sable-stoled sorcerers bear his worshipp'd ark.

*

*

*

*

*

So when the sun in bed,
Curtained with cloudy red,

Pillows his chin upon an orient wave,
The flocking shadows pale

Troop to the infernal jail,

Each fetter'd ghost slips to his several grave;

But see! the Virgin blest

Hath laid her babe to rest:

And the yellow-skirted fays

Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-loved

maze.

Time is, our tedious song should here have ending: Heaven's youngest teemed star Hath fixed her polish'd car,

Her sleeping Lord, with hand-maid lamp, attending: And all about the courtly stable

Bright harness'd angels sit, in order serviceable.

MILTON.

EXTRACT FROM COMUS.

SONG.

Sabrina fair,

Listen where thou art sitting,
Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave,
In twisted braids of lilies knitting

The loose train of thy amber dropping hair;
Listen for dear honour's sake,

Goddess of the silver lake,

Listen, and save.

By all the nymphs that nightly dance
Upon thy streams with wily glance,
Rise, rise, and heave thy rosy head,
From thy coral-paven bed,
And bridle in thy headlong wave,
Till thou our summons answer'd have.
Listen, and save!

Sabrina rises and sings.

By the rushy-fringed bank,

Where grows the willow, and the osier dank,
My sliding chariot stays,
Thick set with agate, and the azure sheen
Of turkis blue, and emerald green,
That in the channel strays;

Whilst from off the waters fleet
Thus I set my printless feet

O'er the cowslip's velvet head,
That bends not as I tread;
Gentle swain, at thy request,
I am here.

MILTON.

SATAN'S VISIT TO PARADISE.

So on he fares, and to the border comes Of Eden, where delicious Paradise Now nearer, crowns with her enclosure green, As with a rural mound, the champain head Of a steep wilderness, whose hairy sides, With thicket overgrown, grotesque and wild, Access denied; and overhead up grew Insuperable height of loftiest shade, Cedar, and pine, and fir, and branching palm, A sylvan scene; and, as the ranks ascend Shade above shade, a woody theatre Of stateliest view. Yet higher than their tops The verdurous wall of Paradise up sprung: Which to our general sire gave prospect large Into his nether empire neighbouring round. And higher than that wall a circling row Of goodliest trees, loaden with fairest fruit, Blossoms and fruits at once of golden hue, Appear'd with gay enamell'd colours mix'd: On which the Sun more glad impress'd his beams Than in fair evening cloud, or humid bow,

When God hath shower'd the earth; so lovely seem'd
That landscape: and of pure, now purer air
Meets his approach, and to the heart inspires
Vernal delight and joy, able to drive
All sadness but despair: now gentle gales,
Fanning their odoriferous wings, dispense
Native perfumes, and whisper whence they stole
Those balmy spoils. As when to them who sail
Beyond the Cape of Hope, and now are past
Mozambic, off at sea north-east winds blow
Sabean odours from the spicy shore

Of Araby the blest; with such delay
Well pleased they slack their course, and many a league
Cheer'd with the grateful smell old Ocean smiles:
So entertain'd those odorous sweets the fiend.

Southward through Eden went a river large,
Nor changed his course, but through the shaggy hill
Pass'd underneath ingulf'd; for God had thrown
That mountain as his garden-mould high raised
Upon the rapid current, which through veins
Of porous earth with kindly thirst updrawn,
Rose a fresh fountain, and with many a rill
Water'd the garden; thence united fell
Down the steep glade, and met the nether flood,
Which from his darksome passage now appears,
And now, divided into four main streams,
Runs diverse, wandering many a famous realm
And country, whereof here needs no account;
But rather to tell how, if Art could tell,

How from that sapphire fount the crisped brooks,
Rolling on orient pearl and sands of gold,
With mazy errour under pendent shades
Ran nectar, visiting each plant, and fed
Flowers worthy of Paradise, which not nice Art