Hence vain deluding joys,

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

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

And fancies' fond with gaudy shapes poffefs,
As thick and numberless

As the gay motes that people the fun-beams,
Or likest hovering dreams

The fickle pensioners of Morpheus train!
But hail thou goddess, fage and holy,
Hail divinest Melancholy,
Whose faintly visage is too bright
To hit the sense of human fight,
And therefore to our weaker view
O'erlaid with black, staid wisdom's hue;
Black, but such as in esteem
Prince Memnon's fifter might beseem,
Or that starr'd Ethiop queen that strove
To let her beauties 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 folitary 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 fhades
Of woody Ida's inmost grove,
While 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 fable stole of Cyprus lawn,
Over'thy decent shoulders drawn.

Come Miilton.

Come, but keep thy wonted state,
With even step, and musing gate,
And looks commercing with the skies,
Thy rapt foul sitting in thine eyes:
There held in holy passion still,
Forget thyself to marble, till
With a fad leaden downward caft
Thou fix them on 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
Ay round about Jove's altar fing:
And add to these retired Leisure,
That in trim gardens takes his pleasure;
But first, and chiefest, with thee bring,
Him that yon foars on golden wing,
Guiding the fiery-wheeled throne,
The cherub Contemplation;
And the mute Silence hiss d along,
'Less Philomel will deign a song,
In her sweetest, laddest plight,
Smoothing the rugged brow of night,
While Cynthia checks her dragon-yoke,
Gently o'er th' accustom'd oak;
Sweet bird, that shunn'ft the noise of folly,
Most musical, most melancholy!
Thee chantress oft the woods among
I woo to hear thy even-fong;
And missing thee, I walk unseen
On the dry smooth-shaven green,
To behold the wand'ring moon,
Riding near her highest noon,
Like one that had been led astray
Through the heav'n's wide pathless way,
And oft, as if her head she how'ds
Stooping through a fleecy cloud.
Oft on a plat of rising ground,
I hear the far-off Curfew found,
Over some wide water'd shore,
Swinging flow with fullen roer;

niilton.

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 belman's drowsy charm,
To bless the doors from nightly harm:
Or let my lamp at midnight-hour,
Be seen in some high lonley tow'r,
Where I may oft out-watch 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 forfook
Her mansion in this felhly nook:
And of those demons that are found
In fire, air, food, or under ground,
Whose power hath a true consent
With planet, or with element,
Sometime let gorgeous Tragedy
In scepter'd pall come sweeping by,
Presenting Thebes, or Pelops line,
Or the tale of Troy divine,
Or what (though rare) of later age
Ennobled hath the buskin'd stage.
But, o sad virgin, that thy power
Might raise Mufaeus from his bower,
Or bid the foul of Orpheus sing
Such notes, as, warbled to the string,
Drew iron tears down Pluto's cheek,
And made Hell gront what love did seek.
Or call' up him that left half told
The story of Cambuscan bold,
Of Camball, and of Algarfife,
And who had Canace to wife,
That ow’nd the virtuous ring and glass,
And of the wondrous horse of brals,
On which the Tartar king did ride;
And it ought elfe great barda beside

nrilton.

In sage and folemn tunes have fung;
Of turnies 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,
Not trick'd and frounc'd as she was wont,
With the Attic boy to hunt,
But kercheft in a comely cloud,
While rocking winds are piping loud,
Or usher'd with a shower still,
When the gust hath blown his fill,
Ending on the russing leaves,
With minute drops from off the eaves.
And when the fun begins to fling
His Aaring beams, me goddels bring
To arched walks of twilight groves,
And shadows brown that Sylvan loves
Of pine, or monumental oak,
Where the rude axe with heaved stroke
Was never heard the nymphs to daunt,
Or fright them from their hallow'd 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 honied thie,
That at her flow'ry work doth fing,
And the waters murmuring
With such confort as they keep,
Entice the dewy-feather'd sleep;
And let some strange mysterious dream
Wave at his wings in airy stream
Of lively portraiture display'd
Softly on my eyelids laid.
And as I wake, sweet music breathe
Above, about, or underneath
Sent by lome spirit to mortals good
Or th' unseen Genius of the wood
But let

my

due feet never fail
To walk the studious cloysters pale,

A

And

tilton.

And love the high emboved roof,
With antic pillars mally proof,
And storied windows richly dight,
Casting a dim religious light.
There let the pealing organ blow,
To the full-voic'd quire below,
In service high, and anthems clear,
As may with sweetness, through mine ear,
Diffolve me into ecftafies,
And bring all heav'n before mine eyes.
And may at last my weary age
Find out the peaceful hermitage,
The hairy gown and mofly cell,
Where I may fit and rightly fpell
Of every star that heav'n doth shew,
And every herb that fips the dew;
Till old experience do attain
To something like prophetic strain.
These pleasures, Melancholy, give,
And I with thee will chule to live.

Pope.