No worldly wave my mind can toss,
I brook that is another's bane.*

I fear no foe, nor fawn on friend,
I loathe not life, nor dread mine end.

I joy not in an earthly bliss;

I weigh not Croesus' wealth a straw;
For care, I care not what it is;

I fear not fortune's fatal law.
My mind is such as may not move
For beauty bright or force of love.

I wish but what I have at will ;6

I wander not to seek for more;
I like the plain, I climb no hill;

In greatest storms I sit on shore,
And laugh at them that toil in vain
To get what must be lost again.

I kiss not where I wish to kill;

I feign not love where most I hate;
I break no sleep to win my will;
I wait not at the mighty's gate;

I scorn no poor, I fear no rich,

I feel no want, nor have too much.

This is my choice; for why ?-I find
No wealth is like a quiet mind.

3 brook, bear.

4 bane, a thing regarded as most injurious, or which really is so.

& Cræsus, an ancient King of Lydia, of fabulous wealth.

I wish only what I can have if I choose.

WHAT pleasures have great princes
More dainty to their choice,
Than herdsmen wild, who careless
In quiet life rejoice;

And fortune's favours scorning,
Sing sweet in summer morning.

All day their flocks each tendeth;
At night they take their rest;
More quiet than who sendeth
His ship into the east,
Where gold and pearl are plenty,
But getting very dainty.1

For lawyers and their pleading,
They 'steem it not a straw :-
They think that honest meaning
Is of itself a law:

Where conscience judgeth plainly,
They spend no money vainly.

O happy who thus liveth,
Not caring much for gold;
With clothing, which sufficeth
To keep him from the cold :—
Though poor and plain his diet,
Yet merry it is and quiet.

1 dainty, but getting either is not easy-from distance, &c.

JOHN MILTON.-Born, 1608; Died, 1674.

Milton ranks next after Shakspeare among English poets. His "Paradise Lost" is his greatest poem. He was Latin secretary to Cromwell.

HYMN ON THE NATIVITY.

Ir was the winter wild,

While the heaven-born child

All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies; Nature, in awe of him,

Had doffed her gaudy trim,

With her great Master so to sympathise : It was no season then for her

To wanton with the sun, her lusty paramour.2

Only with speeches fair

She woos the gentle air,

To hide her guilty front with innocent snow; And on her naked shame,

Pollute with sinful blame,

The saintly veil of maiden-white to throw;

Confounded, that her Maker's eyes

Should look so near upon her foul deformities.

But he, her fears to cease,

Sent down the meek-ey'd Peace;

She, crown'd with olive green, came softly sliding Down through the turning sphere,*

1 gaudy trim, summer glory.

2 paramour, lover.

3 pollute, for polluted.

4 turning sphere, the revolving

heavens.

His ready harbinger,5

With turtle wing the amorous clouds dividing;
And, waving wide her myrtle wand,

She strikes a universal peace through sea and land.

No war or battle's sound

Was heard the world around:

The idle spear and shield were high up hung;
The hooked chariot' stood

Unstain'd with hostile blood;

The trumpet spake not to the armèd throng;
And kings sat still with awe-full eye,

As if they surely knew their sov'reign lord was by.

But peaceful was the night,

Wherein the Prince of Light

His reign of peace upon the earth began:
The winds, with wonder whist,8

Smoothly the waters kiss'd,

Whispering new joys to the mild Ocean,

Who now hath quite forgot to rave,

While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmèd wave.

The stars, with deep amaze,

Stand fix'd in steadfast gaze,

Bending one way their precious influence;

And will not take their flight,

For all the morning light,

Or Lucifer,10 had often warn'd them thence;

5 harbinger, herald.

6 There was peace over the earth (the

Roman Empire) when Christ was
born.

7 chariots had hooked knives pro

jecting from their wheels.

8 Hushed.

9 For all, though. 10 Lucifer, the morning star.

But in their glimmering orbs did glow,

Until their Lord Himself bespake, and bid them go.

And though the shady gloom

Had given day her room,"

The sun himself withheld his wonted speed, And hid his head for shame,

As his inferior flame

The new-enlighten'd world no more should need; He saw a greater sun appear

Than his bright throne, or burning axletree, could bear.

The shepherds on the lawn,

Or ere the point of dawn,

Sat simply chatting in a rustic row;

Full little thought they then

That the mighty Pan12

Was kindly come to live with them below;

Perhaps their loves, or else their sheep,

Was all that did their silly thoughts so busy keep.

When such music sweet

Their hearts and ears did greet,

As never was by mortal fingers strook,13 Divinely-warbled voice

Answering the stringèd noise,

As all their souls in blissful rapture took:

The air, such pleasure loath to lose,

With thousand echoes still prolongs each heavenly close.14

11 Had retired.

12 Pan, lit., "The all;" here, for the ideal heathen god of antiquity. Pan was the name of the god of

shepherds and flocks, but it became at a later time the symbol of the universe and of its Lord.

13 struck

14 close, period, or bar