L'ALLEGRO

Hence, loathed Melancholy,
Of Cerberus and blackest midnight born
In Stygian cave forlorn,
'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy
Find out some uncouth cell,
Where brooding Darkness spreads her jealous wings,
And the night-raven sings;
There under ebon shades, and low-brow'd rocks
As ragged as thy locks,
In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell.

1

But come, thou goddess fair and free,
In heaven yclept Euphrosyne,
And by men, heart-easing Mirth;
Whom lovely Venus, at a birth
With two sister Graces more,
To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore:
Or whether, as some sager sing,
The frolic wind, that breathes the spring,
Zephyr with Aurora playing,
As ke met her once a Maying,
There on beds of violets blue
And fresh-blown roses wash'd in dew,
Fill'd her with thee, a daughter fair,
So buxom, blithe and debonair.
Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee
Jest and youthful Jollity,
Quips and Cranks, and wanton Wiles,
Nods and Becks and wreathed 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.
Coine and trip it, as you go,
On the light fantastic toe ;
And in thy right hand lead with thee
The mountain-nymph, sweet Liberty ;
And, if I give thee honor 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 woodrechoing shrill:
Sometimes walking, not unseen,
By hedge-row 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,
And every shepherd tells his tale,4
Under the hawthorn in the dale.
Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures,
Whilst the landskip round it measures ,
Russet lawns, and fallows gray,
Where the nibbling flocks do stray,
Mountains, on whose barren breast
The laboring clouds do often rest
Meadows trim with daisies pied,
Shallow brooks and rivers wide.
Towers and battlements it sees
Bosom'd high in tufted trees,
Where perhaps some beauty lies,
The cynosure of neighboring eyes.
Hard by, a cottage chimney smokes,
From betwixt two aged oaks ;
Where Corydon and Thyrsis, met,
Are at their savory dinner set

Of herbs, 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 tann'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 màný a youth and màný & maid, Dancing in the chequer'd shade ; And young and old come forth to play On a sunshine holy-day, Till the live-long day-light fail. Then to the spicy nut-brown ale, With stories told of many a feat, How faery Mab the junkets eat: She was pinch’d, and pull’d, she said, And he, by friars' 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 thrash'd the corn, That ten-day laborers 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 doors he flings, Ere the first cock his matin rings. Thus done the tales, to bed they creep, By whispering winds soon lulld to sleep, 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 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 masque and antique pageantry; Such sights as youthful poets dream On summer eves by haunted stream.

Ther, to the well-trod stage anon,
If Jonson's learned sock be on,?
Or sweetest Shakspeare, 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 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 slumbers 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.

Milton shows his early fondness for the Italian language, by taking from it the titles of these poems. L'Allegro is the mirthful (man), and Il Penseroso the melancholy (pensive rather, or thoughtful). These two poems are supposed, with good reason, to have been written at Horton in Buckinghamshire, where his parents were residing at the time of their composition. I mention this circumstance, first because it is pleasant to know when poetry is written in poetical places, and next for the sake of such readers as may happen to know the spot.

1“ Some sager sing.”—Ben Jonson, in one of his Masks. cause,” says Warburton, “those who give to Mirth such

gross companions as Eating and Drinking, are the less sage mytholo

gists.”

2“ Quips, and Cranks, and wanton Wiles.”—What a Crank is, the commentators are puzzled to say. They guess, from analogy with “ winding turns" (which the word originally appears to signify), that the poet means cross purposes, or some other such pastime. The witty author of Hints to a young Reviewer (after. wards, I believe, no mean reviewer himself), who criticised these poems upon the pleasant assumption of their having "just come out,” and expressed his astonishment at “Mr. Milton's amatory notions” (I quote from memory), takes occasion, from the obscu. rity of this word, to observe, that the “phenomenon of a tripping crank” would be very curious, and “doubtless attract nu. merous spectators.” He also, in reference to passages a little further on, wonders how “Mirth can be requested to come and go at the same instant;' and protests at the confident immortal. ity of the “young gentleman who takes himself for a poet,” in proposing to live with Mirth and Liberty both together.

To live with her, and live with thee,
In unreproved pleasures free.

How delightful is wit, when bantering in behalf of excellence !

Through the sweet-briar,” &c.— Sweet-briar and eglantine," says Warton,

are the same plant: by the twisted eglantine he therefore means the honey-suckle: all three are plants often growing against the side or walls of a house.” This is true; yet the deduction is hardly certain. The same name sometimes means different flowers, in different counties; as may be seen from passages in Shakspeare. Eglantine, however, is the French word for the flower of the sweet-briar (eglantier); and hence it came to mean, in English, the briar itself. Perhaps, if Milton had been asked why he used it in this place, he would have made Johnson's noble answer to the lady, when she inquired why he defined pastern, in his Dictionary, to be a horse's knee ; —"Ignorance, madam, ignorance." Poets are often fonder of flowers than learned in their names; and Milton, like his illustrious brethren, Chaucer and Spenser, was born within the sound of Bow bell.

4.“ And every shepherd tells his tale.”—It used to be thought, till Mr. Headley informed Warton otherwise, telling his tale meant telling a love-tale, or story. The correction of this fancy is now admitted ; namely, that tale is a technical word for numbering sheep, and is so used by several poets,-Dryden for one. Warton, like a proper Arcadian, was loth to give up the fancy ; but he afterwards found the new interpretation to be much the better