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Or, if the earlier season lead,
To the tan'd haycock in the mead.
Sometimes, with secure delight,

The upland hamlets will invite,
When the merry bells ring round,
And the jocund rebecks sound
To many a youth, and many a maid,
Dancing in the chequer'd shade;
And young and old come forth to play
On a sun-shine holyday,

'Till the live-long day-light 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 said;
And he by frier's lantern led,

Tells how the drudging goblin sweat
To earn his cream-bowl, duly set,
When, in one night, ere glimpse of morn,
His shadowy flail had thresh'd the corn
That ten day-lab'rers could not end;
Then lies him down the lubber fiend,
And stretch'd out all the chimney's length,
Basks at the fire his hairy strength,
And crop-full out of door he flings,

Ere the first cock his matin rings.

Thus done the tales, to bed they creep,

By whisp'ring winds soon lull'd asleep.
Tower'd cities please us then,

And the busy hum of men,

Where throngs of knights and barons bold
In weeds of peace high triumphs hold,
With store of ladies, whose brig hteyes
Rain influence, and judge the prize
Of wit, or arms, while both contend
To win her grace, whom all commend.
There let Hymen oft appear

In saffron robe, with taper clear,
And pomp, and feast, and revelry,
With masque, and antique pageantry;
Such sights as youthful poets dream,
On summer eves by haunted stream.
Then to the well-trod stage anon,
If Jonson's learned sock be on,
Or sweetest Shakspear, Fancy's child,
Warble his native wood-notes wild.
And ever against eating cares,
Lap me in soft Lydian airs,
Married to immortal verse;

Such as the melting soul 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 tie

The hidden soul of harmony;

That Orpheus' self may heave his head,
From golden slumber on a bed

Of heap'd Elysian flowers, and hear
Such strains as would have won the ear
Of Pluto, to have quite set free
His half regain'd Eurydice.

These delights if thou canst give,
Mirth, with thee I mean to live.

IL PENSEROSO.

[IBID.]

HENCE, vain deluding joys,

The brood of Folly without father bred,
How little you bested,

Or fill the fixed mind with all your toys?
Dwell in some idle brain,

And fancies fond with gaudy shapes possess,
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 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

Prince Memnon's sister might beseem,
Or that star'd Ethiop queen that strove
To set her beauty's praise above

;

The sea nymphs, and their pow'rs 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 bow'rs and glades
He met her, and in secret shades
Of woody Ida's inmost grove,
Whilst yet there was no fear of Jove.
Come, pensive nun, devout and pure,
Sober, stedfast, 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,
And looks commercing with the skies,
Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes:
There held in holy passion still,
Forget thyself to marble, till

With a sad leaden downward cast
Thou fix them to the earth as fast:

And join with thee calm Peace, and Quiet,
Spare Fast, that oft with gods doth diet,
And hears the Muses in a ring,

Aye, 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;
And the mute Silence hist along,
'Less Philomel will deign a song,
In her sweetest, saddest plight,
Smoothing the rugged brow of night,
While Cynthia checks her dragon yoke,
Gently o'er th' accustom'd oak:

Sweet bird, that shun'st the noise of folly,
Most musical, most melancholy!

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