aspects with that kind of fidelity which continually makes a new and surprising revelation of common things. He has not the delicate half-savage woodcraft by virtue of which some poets surprise her at her shy rites. His nature-pictures, if not conventional, are conventionalized. He paints, for the most part, in the broad typical way of the Dutch landscape school,- a style which is fatally dull in second-rate hands, but which, in the hands of a consummate artist, leads to a classical permanency and largeness of effect. It is because Milton's hand is consummate that we can read and re-read the Allegro and Penseroso, sure of a calm, renewed delight, when more thrilling poetry may have exhausted its power to charm after the first appeal.

The language of these two little masterpieces has been the despair of poets. It is not that it is so beautiful, for others have equaled or excelled it in the mere conjuring power of suggestion; but that it is, as a French critic has finely said, so just in its beauty. The means are exquisitely proportioned to the end. The speech incarnates the thought as easily, as satisfyingly, as the muscles of a Phidian youth incarnate the motor-impulse of his brain. Always fruition is just gently touched. To the connoisseur in language there is a sensation of almost physical soothing in its perfect poise and play.

The metre of these poems, notwithstanding its simplicity, will repay careful study. Disregarding the inductions, we perceive the metrical norm to be the line of eight syllables, the stresses falling on the even syllables,

L'ALLEGRO
(1633)

HENCE, loathed Melancholy,

Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born, In Stygian cave forlorn,

'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy,

"But come', thou God'dess fair' and free'." This metre (iambic tetrameter) was a favorite one with Milton's predecessors and contemporaries, but had shown itself to have two great weaknesses. It was prone to degenerate into monotony and into triviality.

Milton avoids the first danger by a liberal use of seven-syllable lines, with the initial stress falling on the first syllable:

Come', and trip' it as you go',

a variation which gives a buoyant lilting effect to the verse, and sends it on with elastic freshness whenever it is in danger of becoming spiritless. It will be noticed, however, that this tripping measure is never introduced arbitrarily, for mere variety's sake, but always in answer to some brightening of mood in the thought itself, such as the quoted line illustrates. With this in mind, it will be instructive to compare the invocation of Mirth and her gay train with that of Melancholy and her sober attendants.

A

To show by what means Milton avoided the second danger to which the metre is exposed, that of degenerating into triviality, would be to put our finger on one of the mysteries of the creative mind. great composer has recently employed the negro melodies and jigs of the southern states as the leading themes in an imposing symphony. In somewhat the same way Milton here raises a half-doggerel metre into dignity. The real artist never shows himself so well as when he works in a homely medium, communicating to it his own distinction.

Find out some uncouth cell,

Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings,

And the night-raven sings;

There under ebon shades, and low-browed rocks,

As ragged as thy locks,

In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell. 10 But come, thou Goddess fair and free,

Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee Jest and youthful Jollity,

Quips, and Cranks, and wanton Wiles,
Nods, and Becks, and wreathèd Smiles,
Such as hang on Hebe's cheek,

And love to live in dimple sleek;
Sport that wrinkled Care derides,
And Laughter holding both his sides.
Cone, and trip it as ye go,
On the light fantastic toe;

And in thy right hand lead with thee
The mountain Nymph, sweet Liberty;
And, if I give thee honour 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 singing startle the dull night,
From his watch-tower in the skies,
Till the dappled Dawn doth rise;
Then to come, in spite of sorrow,
And at my window bid good-morrow,
Through the sweet-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 struts his dames before:
Oft listening how the hounds and horn
Cheerly rouse the slumbering Morn,
From the side of some hoar hill,
Through the high wood echoing shrill:
Sometime walking, not unseen,
By hedgerow elms, on hillocks green,
Right against the eastern gate,
Where the great Sun begins his state,
Robed in flames and amber light,
The clouds in thousand liveries dight;
While the ploughman, near at hand,
Whistles o'er the furrowed land,
And the milkmaid singeth blithe,
And the mower whets his scythe,

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60

And every shepherd tells his tale Under the hawthorn in the dale.

Straight mine eye hath caught new plea

sures,

Whilst the lantskip round it measures:
Russet lawns, and fallows gray,
Where the nibbling flocks do stray;
Mountains on whose barren breast
The labouring clouds do often rest;
Meadows trim with daisies pied;
Shallow brooks, and rivers wide.
Towers and battlements it sees
Bosomed high in tufted trees,
Where perhaps some Beauty lies.
The Cynosure of neighbouring eyes.
Hard by, a cottage chimney smokes
From betwixt two aged oaks,
Where Corydon and Thyrsis met
Are at their savoury dinner set
Of hearbs and other country messes,
Which the neat-handed Phillis dresses;
And then in haste her bower she leaves,
With Thestylis to bind the sheaves;
Or, if the earlier season lead,

To the tanned haycock in the mead.
Sometimes 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 chequered shade;
And young and old come forth to play
On a sunshine holyday,

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80

90

100

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 pinched and pulled, she said;
And he, by Friar's lanthorn 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 hath threshed the corn
That ten day-labourers could not end;
Then lies him down, the lubbar fend,
And, stretched out all the chimney's length,
Basks at the fire his hairy strength,
And crop-full out of doors he flings,
Ere the first cock his matin rings.

Thus done the tales, to bed they creep,
By whispering winds soon lulled asleep.
Towered cities please us then,

And the busy hum of men,

Where throngs of Knights and Barons

bold,

In weeds of peace, high triumphs hold, 120
With store of Ladies, whose bright eyes
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 mask 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 Shakespeare, Fancy's child,
Warble his native wood-notes wild.
And ever, against eating cares,
Lap me in soft Lydian airs,
Married to immortal verse,

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140

Such as the meeting 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 heaped Elysian flowers, and hear
Such strains as would have won the ear
Of Pluto to have quite set free
His half-regained Eurydice.
These delights if thou canst give,
Mirth, with thee I mean to live.

IL PENSEROSO

(1633)

HENCE, vain deluding Joys,

150

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 pos

sess,

As thick and numberless

As the gay motes that people the sunbeams,

Or likest hovering dreams,

The fickle pensioners of Morpheus' train. But, hail thou Goddess sage and holy! 11 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 starred Ethiop Queen that strove
To set her beauty's praise above
The Sea-Nymphs, and their powers of
fended.

Yet thou art higher far descended:
Thee bright-haired 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 bowers 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, steadfast, and demure,
All in a robe of darkest grain,
Flowing with majestic train,
And sable stole of cypress 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 on the earth as fast.

26

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 retirèd Leisure,

4C

That in trim gardens takes his pleasure; 54

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 the accustomed oak.

&

Sweet bird, that shunn'st the noise of folly
Most musical, most melancholy!
Thee, Chauntress, oft the woods among
I woo, to hear thy even-song;
And, missing thee, I walk unseen
On the dry smooth-shaven green,
To behold the wandering Moon,
Riding near her highest noon,

Like one that had been led astray
Through the heaven's wide pathless way,
And oft, as if her head she bowed,
Stooping through a fleecy cloud.
Oft, on a plat of rising ground,
I hear the far-off curfew sound,
Over some wide-watered shore,
Swinging slow with sullen roar;
Or, if the air will not permit,
Some still removed place will fit,

Where glowing embers through the room
Teach light to counterfeit a gloom,

Far from all resort of mirth,

Save the cricket on the hearth,
Or the Bellman's drowsy charm

To bless the doors from nightly harm.
Or let my lamp, at midnight hour,
Be seen in some high lonely tower,
Where I may oft outwatch the Bear,
With thrice-great Hermes, or unsphere
The spirit of Plato, to unfold
What worlds or what vast regions hold
The immortal mind that hath forsook
Her mansion in this fleshly nook;
And of those Dæmons that are found
In fire, air, flood, or underground,
Whose power hath a true consent
With planet or with element.
Sometime let gorgeous Tragedy
In sceptred pall come sweeping by,
Presenting Thebes, or Pelops' line,
Or the tale of Troy divine,

Not tricked and frounced, as she was wont With the Attic boy to hunt,

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But kerchieft in a comely cloud,

While rocking winds are piping loud,

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100

Or what (though rare) of later age
Ennobled hath the buskined stage.
But, O sad Virgin! that thy power
Might raise Musæus from his bower;
Or bid the soul of Orpheus sing
Such notes as, warbled to the string,
Drew iron tears down Pluto's cheek,
And made Hell grant what Love did seek;
Or call up him that left half-told
The story of Cambuscan bold,
Of Camball, and of Algarsife,
And who had Canace to wife,

110

That owned the virtuous ring and glass,
And of the wondrous horse of brass
On which the Tartar King did ride;
And if aught else great Bards beside
In sage and solemn tunes have sung,
Of turneys, and of trophies hung,
Of forests, and inchantments drear,
Where more is meant than meets the ear.
Thus, Night, oft see me in thy pale career,
Till civil-suited Morn appear,

119

Or ushered with a shower still,

When the gust hath blown his fill,
Ending on the rustling leaves,
With minute-drops from off the eaves.
And, when the sun begins to fling
His flaring beams, me, Goddess, bring
To arched walks of twilight groves,
And shadows brown, that Sylvan loves,
Of pine, or monumental oak,

Where the rude axe with heavèd stroke
Was never heard the Nymphs to daunt,
Or fright them from their hallowed haunt.
There, in close covert, by some brook,
Where no profaner eye may look,
Hide me from Day's garish eye,
While the bee with honeyed thigh,
That at her flowery work doth sing,
And the waters murmuring,

With such consort as they keep,
Entice the dewy-feathered Sleep.

And let some strange mysterious dream
Wave at his wings, in airy stream
Of lively portraiture displayed,
Softly on my eyelids laid.

And as I wake, sweet music breathe
Above, about, or underneath,

140

ISC

Sent by some Spirit to mortals good,
Or the unseen Genius of the wood.
But let my due feet never fail
To walk the studious cloister's pale,
And love the high embowèd roof,
With antick pillars massy proof,
And storied windows richly dight,
Casting a dim religious light.
There let the pealing organ blew,
To the full voiced Quire below,
In service high and anthems clear,
As may with sweetness, through mine ear,
Dissolve me into ecstasies,

And bring all Heaven before mine eyes.
And may at last my weary age
Find out the peaceful hermitage,
The hairy gown and mossy cell,
Where I may sit and rightly spell
Of every star that Heaven doth shew,
And every hearb that sips the dew;
Till old experience do attain
To something like prophetic strain.
These pleasures, Melancholy, give,
And I with thee will choose to live.

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170

SONNET TO THE NIGHTIN

GALE

(1632-33)

This piece and the following one have sometimes been assigned to an earlier date. The identity of their tone with that of the Horton poems seems, in the absence of any definite evidence to the contrary, to warrant placing them here.

O NIGHTINGALE that on yon bloomy spray Warblest at eve, when all the woods are still,\

Thou with fresh hopes the Lover's heart dost fill,

While the jolly Hours lead on propitious May.

Thy liquid notes that close the eye of Day, First heard before the shallow cuckoo's bill,

Portend success in love. O if Jove's will Have linked that amorous power to thy

soft lay,

Now timely sing, ere the rude bird of hate Foretell my hopeless doom, in some grove nigh;

As thou from year to year hast sung too late

For my relief, yet had'st no reason why. Whether the Muse or Love call thee his mate,

Both them I serve, and of their train am I.

SONG ON MAY MORNING
(1632-33)

Now the bright morning-star, Day's harbinger,

Comes dancing from the East, and leads with her

The flowery May, who from her green lap throws

The yellow cowslip and the pale prim

rose.

Hail, bounteous May, that dost inspire Mirth, and youth, and warm desire! Woods and groves are of thy dressing;

Hill and dale doth boast thy blessing. Thus we salute thee with our early song, And welcome thee, and wish thee long.

Which is no more than what is false and vain,

And merely mortal dross;
So little is our loss,
So little is thy gain!

For, whenas each thing bad thou hast entombed,

And, last of all, thy greedy Self consumed,
Then long eternity shall greet our bliss
With an individual kiss,

And joy shall overtake us as a flood;
When everything that is sincerely good
And perfectly divine,

With Truth, and Peace, and Love, shall ever shine

About the supreme Throne

Of Him, to whose happy-making sight alone

When once our heavenly-guided soul shall climb,

Then, all this earthly grossness quit, Attired with stars we shall forever sit, Triumphing over Death, and Chance, and thee, O Time!

AT A SOLEMN MUSIC
(1633-34)

BLEST pair of Sirens, pledges of Heaven's joy,

Sphere-born harmonious Sisters, Voice and Verse,

Wed your divine sounds, and mixed power employ,

Dead things with imbreathed sense able to pierce;

And to our high-raised phantasy present That undisturbèd Song of pure concent, Aye sung before the sapphire - coloured Throne

To Him that sits thereon,