Thus sang the uncouth swain to the oaks and rills,
While the still morn went out with sandals gray;
He touch'd the tender stops of various quills,
With eager thought warbling his Doric lay:
And now the sun had stretch'd out all the hills,
And now was dropp'd into the western bay:
At last he rose, and twitch'd his mantle blue:
To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new.

SCENE FROM COMUS.1

A wild wood. The lady enters.

Lady. This way the noise was, if mine ear be true,
My best guide now: methought it was the sound
Of riot and ill-managed merriment,

Such as the jocund flute, or gamesome pipe,
Stirs up among the loose unletter'd hinds,
When for their teeming flocks and granges full,
In wanton dance they praise the bounteous Pan,
And thank the gods amiss. I should be loth
To meet the rudeness and swill'd insolence
Of such late wassailers; 2 yet, O! where else
Shall I inform my unacquainted feet

In the blind mazes of this tangled wood?

190

L. 188. By "stops" Milton here means what we now call the holes of a flute or any species of pipe.

L. 189. This is a Doric lay, because Theocritus and Moschus had respectively written a bucolic on the deaths of Daphnis and Bion.

1 The fable of Comus is this. A beautiful lady, attended by her two brothers, is journeying through a dreary wood. The brothers become separated from their sister, who is met by Comus, the god of low pleasures, who, with his followers, holds his orgies in the night. He addresses her in the disguised character of a peasant, but she resists all his arts, and Comus and his crew are put to flight by the brothers, who come in time to rescue their sister. The object of the poem is to show the full power of true virtue and chastity to triumph over all the assaults of wickedness; or, in the language of ShakspeareThat virtue never will be moved,

Though lewdness court it in a shape of heaven.

"Comus," says Sir Egerton Brydges, "is the invention of a beautiful fable, enriched with shadowy beings and visionary delights: every line and word is pure poetry, and the sentiments are as exquisite as the images. It is a composition which no pen but Milton's could have produced." It seems that an accidental event which occurred to the family of Milton's patron, John Egerton, Earl of Bridgewater, then keeping his court at Ludlow castle, gave birth to this fable. The earl's two sons and daughter, Lady Alice, were benighted, and lost their way in Heywood-forest; and the two brothers, in the attempt to explore their path, left the sister alone, in a track of country rudely inhabited. On these simple facts the poet raised a superstructure of such fairy spells and poetical delight as has never since been equalled.

Wassail, from the Anglo-Saxon was hal, "be in health." It was anciently the pledge word in drinking, equivalent to the modern "your health." The bowl in which the liquor was presented was called the wassail-bowl, and as it was peculiar to scenes of revelry and festivity, the term wassail In time became synonymous with feasting and carousing. Thus, in Shakspeare, Lady Macbeth de clares that she will "convince (that is, overpower) the two chamberlains of Duncan with wine and wassel," and Ben Jonson, giving an account of a rural feast, says:

The rout of rural folk come thronging in,
Their rudeness then is thought no sin--
The jolly wassel walks the often round,

And in their cups their cares are drown'd.

I cannot halloo to my brothers, but

Such noise as I can make to be heard farthest,
I'll venture; for my new-enliven'd spirits
Prompt me; and they perhaps are not far off.

Song.1

Sweet Echo, sweetest nymph, that livest unseen
Within thy aery shell,

By slow Meander's margent green,
And in the violet-embroider'd vale,

Where the love-lorn nightingale

Nightly to thee her sad song mourneth well;
Canst thou not tell me of a gentle pair

That likest thy Narcissus are?

O if thou have

Hid them in some flowery cave,

Tell me but where,

Sweet queen of parley, daughter of the sphere!
So mayst thou be translated to the skies,

And give resounding grace to all heaven's harmonies.

Enter Comus.

Comus. Can any mortal mixture of earth's mould
Breathe such divine enchanting ravishment?
Sure something holy lodges in that breast,
And with these raptures moves the vocal air
To testify his hidden residence.

How sweetly did they float upon the wings
Of silence, through the empty-vaulted night,
At every fall smoothing the raven-down
Of darkness, till it smiled! I have oft heard
My mother Circe with the sirens three,
Amidst the flowery-kirtled Naiades,
Culling their potent herbs and baleful drugs;
Who, as they sung, would take the prison'd soul,
And lap it in Elysium: Scylla wept,

And chid her barking waves into attention,
And fell Charybdis murmur'd soft applause:
Yet they in pleasing slumber lull'd the sense,
And in sweet madness robb'd it of itself;
But such a sacred and home-felt delight,
Such sober certainty of waking bliss,

I never heard till now.-I'll speak to her,

And she shall be my queen.-Hail, foreign wonder!?
Whom certain these rough shades did never breed,
Unless the goddess that in rural shrine

Dwell'st here with Pan, or Sylvan; by blest song

1 "The songs of this poem are of a singular felicity; they are unbroken streams of exquisite ima very, either imaginative or descriptive, with a dance of numbers which sounds like aërial music: for Instance, the Lady's song to Echo."-Brydges.

2 "Comus's address to the lady is exceedingly beautiful in every respect; but all readers will acknowledge that the style of it is much raised by the expression unless the goddess,' an elliptical expression, unusual in our language, though common enough in Greek and Latin. But if we were to fill it up and say, 'unless thou beest the goidess,' how flat and insipid would it make the compo sition, compared with what it is."-Lord Montoddo.

Forbidding every bleak unkindly fog

To touch the prosperous growth of this tal. wood.
Lady. Nay, gentle shepherd, ill is lost that praise
That is address'd to unattending ears;

Not any boast of skill, but extreme shift
How to regain my sever'd company,

Compell'd me to awake the courteous Echo

To give me answer from her mossy couch.

Com. What chance, good lady, hath bereft you thus?

Lady. Dim darkness, and this leavie labyrinth.

Com. Could that divide you from near-ushering guides?
Lady. They left me weary on a grassy turf.
Com. By falsehood, or discourtesy, or why?

Lady. To seek i' the valley some cool friendly spring.
Com. And left your fair side all unguarded, lady?

Lady. They were but twain, and purposed quick return. Com. Perhaps forestalling night prevented them. Lady. How easy my misfortune is to hit! Com. Imports their loss, beside the present need? Lady. No less than if I should my brothers lose. Com. Were they of manly prime, or youthful bloom? Lady. As smooth as Hebe's their unrazor'd lips. Com. Two such I saw, what time the labor'd ox In his loose traces from the furrow came, And the swink'd hedger at his supper sat; I saw them under a green mantling vine, That crawls along the side of yon small hill, Plucking ripe clusters from the tender shoots: Their port was more than human as they stood: I took it for a faery vision

Of some gay creatures of the element,

That in the colors of the rainbow live,

And play in the plighted clouds. I was awe-struck,
And, as I pass'd, I worshipp'd; if those you seek,
It were a journey like the path to heaven,

To help you find them.

Lady.

Gentle villager,

What readiest way would bring me to that place?
Com. Due west it rises from this shrubby point.
Lady. To find out that, good shepherd, I suppose,
In such a scant allowance of star-light,

Would overtask the best land-pilot's art,

Without the sure guess of well-practised feet.

Com. I know each lane, and every alley green,

Dingle, or bushy dell of this wild wood,
And every bosky bourn from side to side,
My daily walks and ancient neighborhood;
And if your stray attendants be yet lodged,
Or shroud within these limits, I shall know
Ere morrow wake, or the low-roosted lark
From her thatch'd pallet rouse; if otherwise,
I can conduct you, lady, to a low

But loyal cottage, where you may be safe
Till farther quest.

1 "Swink'd," 1. e. tired, fatigued.

Lady.

Shepherd, I take thy word,

And trust thy honest offer'd courtesy,

Which oft is sooner found in lowly sheds
With smoky rafters, than in tapestry halls
And courts of princes, where it first was named,
And yet is most pretended: in a place
Less warranted than this, or less secure,

I cannot be, that I should fear to change it.-
Eye me, bless'd Providence, and square my trial
To my proportion'd strength!-Shepherd, lead on.

INVOCATION TO LIGHT.1

Hail, holy Light! offspring of heaven first-born,
Or of the Eternal co-eternal beam,

May I express thee unblamed ?2 since God is light,
And never but in unapproached light
Dwelt from eternity, dwelt then in thee,
Bright effluence of bright essence increate.
Or hear'st thou rather pure ethereal stream,3
Whose fountain who shall tell? Before the sun,
Before the heavens thou wert, and at the voice
Of God, as with a mantle, didst invest
The rising world of waters dark and deep,
Won from the void and formless infinite.
Thee I revisit now with bolder wing,

Escaped the Stygian pool, though long detain'd
In that obscure sojourn; while in my flight,
Through utter and through middle darkness borne,
With other notes than to the Orphean lyre,
I sung of Chaos and eternal Night;

Taught by the heavenly Muse to venture down
The dark descent, and up to reascend,
Though hard and rare: thee I revisit safe,
And feel thy sovran vital lamp; but thou
Revisit'st not these eyes, that roll in vain
To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn;
So thick a drop serene hath quench'd their orbs,
Or dim suffusion veil'd. Yet not the more
Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt
Clear spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill,
Smit with the love of sacred song; but chief
Thee, Sion, and the flowery brooks beneath,5
That wash thy hallow'd feet, and warbling flow,
Nightly I visit: nor sometimes forget

Those other two equall'd with me in fate,
So were I equall'd with them in renown,

1 "This celebrated complaint, with which Milton opens the third book, deserves all the praises which have been given it."-Addison.

2 That is, may I, without blame, call thee the co-eternai beam of the Eternal God.

• Or rather dost thou hear this address, dost thou rather to be called, pure ethereal stream!

4 As in Job xxxviii. 19, "Where is the way where light dwelleth "

Kedron and Siloa. "He still was pleased to study the beauties of the ancient poets, but his highest delight was in the Songs of Sion, in the holy Scriptures, and in these he meditated day and night. This is the sense of the passage stripped of its poetical ornaments."-Newton.

Blind Thamyris, and blind Mæonides,1
And Tiresias, and Phineus, prophets old:
Then feed on thoughts, that voluntary move
Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful bird
Sings darkling, and in shadiest covert hid
Tunes her nocturnal note. Thus with the year
Seasons return; but not to me returns
Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose,
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;
But cloud instead, and ever-during dark
Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men
Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair,
Presented with a universal blank

Of nature's works, to me expunged and rased,
And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.
So much the rather thou, celestial Light,

Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers
Irradiate; there plant eyes; all mist from thence
Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell

Of things invisible to mortal sight.

Paradise Lost, III. 1.

EVE'S ACCOUNT OF HER CREATION.
That day I oft remember, when from sleep
I first awaked, and found myself reposed,
Under a shade, on flowers, much wondering where
And what I was, whence thither brought, and how.
Not distant far from thence a murmuring sound
Of waters issued from a cave, and spread

Into a liquid plain, then stood unmoved,
Pure as the expanse of heaven: I thither went
With unexperienced thought, and laid me down
On the green bank, to look into the clear
Smooth lake, that to me seem'd another sky.
As I bent down to look, just opposite

A shape within the watery gleam appear'd,
Bending to look on me: I started back,
It started back; but pleased I soon return'd,
Pleased it return'd as soon, with answering looks
Of sympathy and love: there I had fix'd

Mine eyes till now, and pined with vain desire,
Had not a voice thus warn'd me: "What thou seest,
What there thou seest, fair creature, is thyself;
With thee it came and goes; but follow me,
And I will bring thee where no shadow stays
Iny coming and thy soft embraces; he

Whose image thou art: him thou shalt enjoy

1 Mæonides is Homer. Thamyris was a Thracian, and invented the Doric mood or measure, Tiresias and Phineus, the former a Theban, the latter a king of Arcadia, were famous blind bards of antiquity. Milton uses the word "prophet" in the sense of the Latin vates, which unites the character of prophet and poet. Indeed, throughout Milton's poetry there are words and phrases perpetu ally occurring that are used in their pure Latin sense, the beauties of which none but a classical scholar can fully appreciate. This, of itself, is a sufficient answer, if there were not a dozen others, to the senseless question so often asked, "What is the use of a girl's studying Latin "