Above the smoke and stir of this dim spot

Which men call earth.

That golden key

Comus. Line 5.

That opes the palace of eternity.

The nodding horror of whose shady brows
Threats the forlorn and wandering passenger.
I will tell you now

What never yet was heard in tale or song,
From old or modern bard, in hall or bower.
Bacchus, that first from out the purple grape
Crush'd the sweet poison of misused wine.

These my sky-robes spun out of Iris' woof.

The star that bids the shepherd fold.

Line 13.

Line 38.

Line 43.

Line 46.

Line 83.

Line 93.

Rose from the hindmost wheels of Phoebus' wain.

A thousand fantasies

Begin to throng into my memory,

Line 103.

Line 138.

Line 188.

Of calling shapes, and beck'ning shadows dire,
And airy tongues that syllable men's names
On sands and shores and desert wildernesses.

Line 205.

Oh welcome, pure-ey'd Faith, white-handed Hope,
Thou hovering angel, girt with golden wings!

Line 213.

Was I deceiv'd, or did a sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining on the night?

Line 221.

Can any mortal mixture of earth's mould
Breathe such divine enchanting ravishment?

Line 244.

How sweetly did they float upon the wings.
Of silence through the empty-vaulted night,
At every fall smoothing the raven down
Of darkness till it smil'd!

Comus. Line 249.

Who, as they sung, would take the prison'd soul

That in the colours of the rainbow live,
And play i' th' plighted clouds.

It were a journey like the path to heaven,
To help you find them.

With thy long levell'd rule of streaming light.

Virtue could see to do what virtue would
By her own radiant light, though sun and moon
Were in the flat sea sunk. And Wisdom's self
Oft seeks to sweet retired solitude,

Where with her best nurse Contemplation
She plumnes her feathers and lets grow her wings,
That in the various bustle of resort

Were all-to ruffled, and sometimes impair'd.
He that has light within his own clear breast
May sit i' th' centre and enjoy bright day;
But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts
Benighted walks under the midday sun.

Of miser's treasure.

The unsunn'd heaps

'Tis chastity, my brother, chastity:
She that has that is clad in complete steel.

Some say no evil thing that walks by night,
In fog or fire, by lake or moorish fen,
Blue meagre hag, or stubborn unlaid ghost

Line 298.

Line 303.

Line 340.

Line 373.

Line 398.

Line 420.

Comus. Line 432.

That breaks his magic chains at curfew time,
No goblin, or swart fairy of the mine,
Hath hurtful power o'er true virginity.
So dear to heav'n is saintly chastity,
That when a soul is found sincerely so,
A thousand liveried angels lackey 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.

How charming is divine philosophy!
Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose,
But musical as is Apollo's lute,1

Line 453.

And a perpetual feast of nectar'd sweets

Where no crude surfeit reigns.

Line 476.

And sweeten'd every musk-rose of the dale.

Line 496.

Fill'd the air with barbarous dissonance.

Line 550.

I was all ear,

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

Line 560.

The leaf was darkish, and had prickles on it,
But in another country, as he said,

Bore a bright golden flow'r, but not in this soil;
Unknown, and like esteem'd, and the dull swain
Treads on it daily with his clouted shoon.

Enter'd the very lime-twigs of his spells,
And yet came off.

1 See Shakespeare, page 56.

Line 631.

Line 646.

And live like Nature's bastards, not her sons.

It is for homely features to keep home,-
They had their name thence; coarse complexions
And cheeks of sorry grain will serve to ply
The sampler and to tease the huswife's wool.
What need a vermeil-tinctur'd lip for that,
Love-darting eyes, or tresses like the morn?
Swinish gluttony

Ne'er looks to heav'n amidst his gorgeous feast,
But with besotted base ingratitude

Line 727.

Line 748.

Crams, and blasphemes his feeder.

Line 776.

Enjoy your dear wit and gay rhetoric,

That hath so well been taught her dazzling fence.

The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair.

Line 859.

But now my task is smoothly done,

I can fly, or I can run.

Line 1012.

Or if Virtue feeble were,

Heav'n itself would stoop to her.

I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude,
And with forc'd fingers rude

Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year.

He knew

Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme.

Line 1022.

Lycidas. Line 3.

Line 10.

Without the meed of some melodious tear.

Under the opening eyelids of the morn.

Lycidas. Line 14.

Line 26.

But oh the heavy change, now thou art gone,
Now thou art gone and never must return!

Line 37.

Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise1 (That last infirmity of noble mind)

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' abhorred shears
And slits the thin-spun life.

Line 70.

Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil.

Line 78.

It was that fatal and perfidious bark,

Built in th' eclipse, and rigg'd with curses dark.

Line 100.

The pilot of the Galilean lake;

Two massy keys he bore, of metals twain

(The golden opes, the iron shuts amain).

Line 109.

But that two-handed engine at the door
Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more.
Throw hither all your quaint enamell'd eyes
That on the green turf suck the honied showers,
And purple all the ground with vernal flowers.
Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies,
The tufted crow-toe, and pale jessamine,

Line 130.

1 Erant quibus appetentior famæ videretur, quando etiam sapientibus cupido gloriæ novissima exuitur (Some might consider him as too fond of fame, for the desire of glory clings even to the best of men longer than any other passion) [said of Helvidius Priscus]. - TACITUS: Historia, iv. 6.