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A thousand liveried angels lacky her,
Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt,
And in clear dream, and solemn vision,
Tell her of things that no gross ear can hear,
Till oft converse with heav'nly habitants
Begin to cast a beam on th' outward shape,
The unpolluted temple of the mind,

And turns it by degrees to the soul's essence,
Till all be made immortal; but when Lust,
By unchaste looks, loose gestures, and foul talk,
But most by lewd and lavish act of sin,
Lets in Defilement to the inward parts,
The soul grows clotted by contagion,
Imbodies and imbrutes, till she quite lose
The divine property of her first being.

John Milton.

MUSIC.

Ar last a soft and solemn-breathing sound
Rose like a stream of rich distilled perfumes,
And stole upon the air, that even Silence
Was took ere she was 'ware, and wished she might
Deny her nature, and be never more

Still to be so displaced. I was all ear,

And took in strains that might create a soul
Under the ribs of Death.

John Milton.

FAME.

Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise
(That last infirmity of noble minds),

To scorn delights and live laborious days:
But the fair guerdon when we hope to find,
And think to burst out into sudden blaze,
Comes the blind Fury with th' abhorrèd shears,
And slits the thin-spun life. "But not the praise,"
Phoebus replied, and touched my trembling ears.

John Milton.

ON SHAKESPEARE.

WHAT needs my Shakespeare for his honored bones
The labor of an age in piled stones,

Or that his hallowed reliques should be hid

Under a star-y-pointing pyramid?

Dear son of Memory, great heir of Fame,

What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name ?
Thou in our wonder and astonishment

Hast built thyself a livelong monument.

John Milton.

ON HIS BLINDNESS.

When I consider how my light is spent

E'er half my days in this dark world and wide, And that one talent which is death to hide, Lodg'd with me useless, though my soul more bent To serve therewith my Maker, and present My true account, lest he returning chide; Doth God exact day labor, light deny'd, I fondly ask? but patience to prevent That murmur soon replies, God doth not need EITHER man's work or his own gifts; who best Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best : his state Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed, And post o'er land and ocean without rest; They also serve who only stand and wait. John Milton

GO, LOVELY ROSE.

Go, lovely rose !

Tell her that wastes her time and me,
That now she knows,

When I resemble her to thee,

How sweet and fair she seems to be.

Tell her that's young,

And shuns to have her graces spied,

That had'st thou sprung

In deserts where no men abide,

Thou must have uncommended lied.

Small is the worth

Of beauty from the light retired; Bid her come forth,

Suffer herself to be desired,

And not blush so to be admired.

Edmund Waller, 1605-'87.

SONG TO MORPHEUS.

MORPHEUS, the humble god, that dwells
In cottages and smoky cells,

Hates gilded roofs and beds of down;
And, though he fears no prince's frown,
Flies from the circle of a crown.

Come, I say, thou powerful god,
And thy leaden charming rod,
Dipt in the Lethean lake,

O'er his wakeful temples shake,
Lest he should sleep and never wake.

Nature, alas! why art thou so
Obliged to thy greatest foe?
Sleep, that is thy best repast,
Yet of death it bears a taste,

And both are the same thing at last.
Sir John Denham, 1615-'68.

VIRGIN PURITY.

THE morning pearls,

Dropt in the lily's spotless bosom, are
Less chastely cool, ere the meridian sun
Hath kiss'd them into heat.

William Chamberlayne, 1619-'89.

THE DEPOSITION.

THOUGH When I lov'd thee thou wert rair,

Thou art no longer so:

Those glories, all the pride they wear

Unto opinion owe.

Beauties, like stars, in borrow'd lustre shine,

And 't was my love that gave thee thine.

The flames that dwelt within thine eye
Do now with mine expire;
Thy brightest graces fade and die
At once with my desire.

Love's fires thus mutual influence return;
Thine cease to shine when mine to burn.

Then, proud Celinda, hope no more
To be implor'd or woo'd;

Since by thy scorn thou dost restore
The wealth my love bestow'd;

And thy despis'd disdain too late shall find
That none are fair but who are kind.

Thomas Stanley, 1625-'78

LA BELLE CONFIDANTE.

You earthly souls that court a wanton flame
Whose pale, weak influence

Can rise no higher than the humble name
And narrow laws of sense,

Learn by our friendship to create

An immaterial fire,

Whose brightness angels may admire,
But cannot emulate.

Sickness may fright the roses from her check,
Or make the lilies fade,

But all the subtle ways that death doth seek
Cannot my love invade.

THE NEW YEAR.

Thomas Stanley.

HARK! the cock crows; and yon bright star

Tells us, the day himself's not far.

And see where, breaking from the night,

He gilds the western hills with light?
With him old Janus doth appear,

Peeping into the future year,
With such a look as seems to say
The prospect is not good that way.
Thus do we rise ill sights to see,
And 'gainst ourselves do prophesy;

When the prophetic fear of things.
A more tormenting mischief brings,
More full of soul-tormenting gall
Than direst mischiefs can befall.

Charles Cotton, 1630-'87.

REASON AND RELIGION.

DIM as the borrowed beams of moon and stars,
To lonely, weary, wandering travellers,
Is Reason to the soul; and as on high
Those rolling fires discover but the sky,
Not light us here, so Reason's glimmering ray
Was lent, not to assure our doubtful way,
But guide us upward to a better day,
And as those nightly tapers disappear
When day's bright lord ascends our hemisphere,
So pale grows Reason at Religion's sight,-
So dies, and so dissolves in supernatural light.
John Dryden, 1631-1700.

A SIMILE.

TILL, like a clock worn out with beating time.
The weary wheels of life at last stood still.
John Dryden.

MEN.

MEN are but children of a larger growth;
Our appetites as apt to change as theirs,
And full as craving too, and full as vain;
And yet the soul shut up in her dark room,
Viewing so clear abroad, at home sees nothing;
But like a mole in earth, busy and blind,
Works all her folly up, and casts it outward
To the world's view.

ALEXANDER'S FEAST;

An Ode on St. Cecilia's Day.

John Dryden

TWAS at the royal feast, for Persia won,

By Philip's warlike son:

Aloft in awful state

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