I cannot halloo to my brothers, but

Such noise as I can make to be heard farthest,
I'll venture; for my new-enliven'd spirits
Prompt me; and they perhaps are not far off.

Song.1

Sweet Echo, sweetest nymph, that livest unseen
Within thy aery shell,

By slow Meander's margent green,
And in the violet-embroider'd vale,

Where the love-lorn nightingale

Nightly to thee her sad song mourneth well;
Canst thou not tell me of a gentle pair

That likest thy Narcissus are?

O if thou have

Hid them in some flowery cave,

Tell me but where,

Sweet queen of parley, daughter of the sphere!
So mayst thou be translated to the skies,

And give resounding grace to all heaven's harmonies.

Enter Comus.

Comus. Can any mortal mixture of earth's mould
Breathe such divine enchanting ravishment?
Sure something holy lodges in that breast,
And with these raptures moves the vocal air
To testify his hidden residence.

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 smiled! I have oft heard
My mother Circe with the sirens three,
Amidst the flowery-kirtled Naiades,
Culling their potent herbs and baleful drugs;
Who, as they sung, would take the prison'd soul,
And lap it in Elysium: Scylla wept,

And chid her barking waves into attention,
And fell Charybdis murmur'd soft applause:
Yet they in pleasing slumber lull'd the sense,
And in sweet madness robb'd it of itself;
But such a sacred and home-felt delight,
Such sober certainty of waking bliss,

I never heard till now.-I'll speak to her,

And she shall be my queen.-Hail, foreign wonder!
Whom certain these rough shades did never breed,
Unless the goddess that in rural shrine

Dwell'st here with Pan, or Sylvan; by blest song

1 The songs of this poem are of a singular felicity; they are unbroken streams of exquisite ima gery, either imaginative or descriptive, with a dance of Lumbers which sounds like aërial music: for instance, the Lady's song to Echo."-Brydges.

"Comus's address to the lady is exceedingly beautiful in every respect; but all readers will ac knowledge that the style of it is much raised by the expression 'unless the goddess,' an elliptical expression, unusual in our language, though common enough in Greek and Latin. But if we were to fill it up and say, 'unless thou beest the goidess, how flat and insipid would it make the compo sition, compared with what it is."-Lord Monboddo.

Forbidding every bleak unkindly fog

To touch the prosperous growth of this tal. wood.
Lacy. Nay, gentle shepherd, ill is lost that praise
That is address'd to unattending ears;

Not any boast of skill, but extreme shift
How to regain my sever'd company,

Compell'd me to awake the courteous Echo

To give me answer from her mossy couch.

Com. What chance, good lady, hath bereft you thus?
Lady. Dim darkness, and this leavie labyrinth.

Com. Could that divide you from near-ushering guides?
Lady. They left me weary on a grassy turf.
Com. By falsehood, or discourtesy, or why?

Lady. To seek i' the valley some cool friendly spring.
Com. And left your fair side all unguarded, lady?

Lady. They were but twain, and purposed quick return, Com. Perhaps forestalling night prevented them. Lady. How easy my misfortune is to hit! Com. Imports their loss, beside the present need? Lady. No less than if I should my brothers lose. Com. Were they of manly prime, or youthful bloom? Lady. As smooth as Hebe's their unrazor'd lips. Com. Two such I saw, what time the labor'd ox In his loose traces from the furrow came, And the swink'd' hedger at his supper sat; I saw them under a green mantling vine, That crawls along the side of yon small hill, Plucking ripe clusters from the tender shoots: Their port was more than human as they stood: I took it for a faery vision

Of some gay creatures of the element,

That in the colors of the rainbow live,

And play in the plighted clouds. I was awe-struck,
And, as I pass'd, I worshipp'd; if those you seek,
It were a journey like the path to heaven,

To help you find them.

Lady.

Gentle villager,

What readiest way would bring me to that place?
Com. Due west it rises from this shrubby point.
Lady. To find out that, good shepherd, I suppose,
In such a scant allowance of star-light,

Would overtask the best land-pilot's art,

Without the sure guess of well-practised feet.

Com. I know each lane, and every alley green,
Dingle, or bushy dell of this wild wood,
And every bosky bourn from side to side,
My daily walks and ancient neighborhood;
And if your stray attendants be yet lodged,
Or shroud within these limits, I shall know
Ere morrow wake, or the low-roosted lark
From her thatch'd pallet rouse; if otherwise,
I can conduct you, lady, to a low

But loyal cottage, where you may be safe
Till farther quest.

1 "Swink'd," 1. e. tired, fatigued.

INVOCATION TO LIGHT.1

Hail, holy Light! offspring of heaven first-born,
Or of the Eternal co-eternal beam,

May I express thee unblamed?2 since God is light,
And never but in unapproached light
Dwelt from eternity, dwelt then in thee,
Bright effluence of bright essence increate.
Or hear'st thou rather pure ethereal stream,3
Whose fountain who shall tell? Before the sun,
Before the heavens thou wert, and at the voice
Of God, as with a mantle, didst invest
The rising world of waters dark and deep,
Won from the void and formless infinite.

Thee I revisit now with bolder wing,

Escaped the Stygian pool, though long detain'd
In that obscure sojourn; while in my flight,
Through utter and through middle darkness borne,
With other notes than to the Orphean lyre,
I sung of Chaos and eternal Night;

Taught by the heavenly Muse to venture down
The dark descent, and up to reascend,
Though hard and rare: thee I revisit safe,
And feel thy sovran vital lamp; but thou
Revisit'st not these eyes, that roll in vain
To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn;
So thick a drop serene hath quench'd their orbs,
Or dim suffusion veil'd. Yet not the more
Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt
Clear spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill,

Smit with the love of sacred song; but chief

Thee, Sion, and the flowery brooks beneath,

That wash thy hallow'd feet, and warbling flow,

Nightly I visit: nor sometimes forget

Those other two equall'd with me in fate,
So were I equall'd with them in renown,

1 "This celebrated complaint, with which Milton opens the third book, deserves all the praises which have been given it.”—Addison.

? That is, may I, without blame, call thee the co-eternal beam of the Eternal God.

• Or rather dost thou hear this address, dost thou rather to be called, pure ethereal dream!

4 As in Job xxxviii. 19, "Where is the way where light dwelleth "

• Kedron and Siloa. "He still was pleased to study the beauties of the ancient poets, but his high

est delight was in the Songs of Sion, in the holy Scriptures, and in these he meditated day and night. This is the sener of the passag stripped of its poetical ornaments.”—Newton.

Blind Thamyris, and blind Monides,'
And Tiresias, and Phineus, prophets old:
Then feed on thoughts, that voluntary move
Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful bird
Sings darkling, and in shadiest covert hid
Tunes her nocturnal note. Thus with the year
Seasons return; but not to me returns
Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose,
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;
But cloud instead, and ever-during dark
Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men
Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair,
Presented with a universal blank

Of nature's works, to me expunged and rased,
And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.
So much the rather thou, celestial Light,

Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers
Irradiate; there plant eyes; all mist from thence
Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell

Of things invisible to mortal sight.

Paradise Lost, III. L

EVE'S ACCOUNT OF HER CREATION.
That day I oft remember, when from sleep
I first awaked, and found myself reposed,
Under a shade, on flowers, much wondering where
And what I was, whence thither brought, and how.
Not distant far from thence a murmuring sound
Of waters issued from a cave, and spread

Into a liquid plain, then stood unmoved,
Pure as the expanse of heaven: I thither went
With unexperienced thought, and laid me down
On the green bank, to look into the clear
Smooth lake, that to me seem'd another sky.
As I bent down to look, just opposite
A shape within the watery gleam appear'd,
Bending to look on me: I started back,
It started back; but pleased I soon return'd,
Pleased it return'd as soon, with answering looks
Of sympathy and love: there I had fix'd

Mine eyes till now, and pined with vain desire,
Had not a voice thus warn'd me: "What thou seest,
What there thou seest, fair creature, is thyself;
With thee it came and goes; but follow me,
And I will bring thee where no shadow stays
Iny coming and thy soft embraces; he

Whose image thou art: him thou shalt enjoy

1 Mæonkies is Homer. Thamyris was a Thracian, and invented the Doric mood or measure, Tiresias and Phineus, the former a Theban, the latter a king of Arcadia, were famous blind bards of antiquity. Milton uses the word "prophet” in the sense of the Latin vates, which unites the character of prophet and poet. Indeed, throughout Milton's poetry there are words and phrases perpetu ally occurring that are used in their pure Latin sense, the beauties of which none but a classical scholar can fully appreciate. This, of itself, is a sufficient answer, if there were not a dozen others, to the senseless questior, so often asked, "What is the use of a girl's studying Latin "

Inseparably thine; to him shalt bear
Multitudes like thyself, and thence be call'd
Mother of human race." What could I do,
But follow straight, invisibly thus led?
Till I espied thee, fair indeed, and tall,
Under a platane; yet, methought, less fair,
Less winning soft, less amiably mild,

Than that smooth watery image: back I turn'd;
Thou, following, criedst aloud, "Return, fair Eve;
Whom fliest thou? whom thou fliest, of him thou art,
His flesh, his bone; to give thee being I lent
Out of my side to thee, nearest my heart,
Substantial life, to have thee by my side
Henceforth an individual solace dear.

Part of my soul, I seek thee, and thee claim,
My other half." With that, thy gentle hand
Seized mine: I yielded; and from that time see
How beauty is excell'd by manly grace,
And wisdom, which alone is truly fair.

EVENING IN PARADISE.

Paradies Lost, TV. 449.

Now came still evening on, and twilight gray
Had in her sober livery all things clad:
Silence accompanied; for beast and bird,
They to their grassy couch, these to their nests,
Were slunk; all but the wakeful nightingale;
She all night long her amorous descant sung;
Silence was pleased: now glow'd the firmament
With living sapphires; Hesperus, that led
The starry host, rode brightest; till the moon
Rising in clouded majesty, at length,
Apparent queen, unveil'd her peerless light,
And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw.

When Adam thus to Eve: "Fair consort, the hour
Of night, and all things now retired to rest,
Mind us of like repose; since God hath set
Labor and rest, as day and night, to men
Successive; and the timely dew of sleep,
Now falling with soft slumbrous weight, inclines
Our eyelids; other creatures all day long
Rove idle, unemploy'd, and less need rest:
Man hath his daily work of body or mind
Appointed, which declares his dignity,
And the regard of heaven on all his ways:
While other animals unactive range,
And of their doings God takes no account.
To-morrow, ere fresh morning streak the east
With first approach of light, we must be risen,
And at our pleasant labor, to reform
Yon flowery arbors, yonder alleys green,
Our walk at noon, with branches overgrown,
That mock our scant manuring and require

More hands than ours 10 lop their wanton growth