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.

150

of. Hetcher's Nice Valour, of the Parrinate Koor or Madman.

HENCE, vain deluding joys,

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 possess,
As thick and numberless

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

The fickle pensioners of Morpheus' train.

10

But, hail! thou goddess sage and holy,
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 starr'd Ethiop queen that strove
To set her beauty's praise above

The sea-nymphs, and their powers offended,
Yet thou art higher far descended,
Thee, bright-hair'd 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. 30
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, 40
Forget thyself to marble, till,
With a sad leaden downward cast
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,

Aye round about Jove's altar sing;
And add to these retired Leisure,
That in trim gardens takes his pleasure
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 accustom'd oak:

60

Sweet bird, that shunn'st the noise of folly,

Most musical, most melancholy!

Thee, chantress, 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 bow'd, 71
Stooping through a fleecy cloud.

Oft, on a plat of rising ground,
I hear the far-off curfew sound,
Over some wide water'd 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 : 80
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: 92
And of those demons 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;
Or what (though rare) of later age
Ennobled hath the buskin'd stage.

100

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,

"RRIN SHIN.59