Lights and Shadows of Milton
February 24, 2020 |
| John Milton |
John
Milton. (1608–1674). Complete Poems.
In a superb poem,
Milton bids Loathed Melancholy begone to some dark cell. He calls for
the joys of youth and vows eternal faith with them.
(John Milton marries
his third wife, Elizabeth Marshall, Feb. 24, 1662.)
Vol. 4, pp. 30-38 of
The Harvard Classics
L’Allegro
(1633)
HENCE, loathèd
Melancholy,
Of Cerberus
and blackest Midnight born,
In Stygian cave forlorn
’Mongst
horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy,
Find out some uncouth
cell,
Where
brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings,
And the night-raven
sings;
There under
ebon shades, and low-browed rocks,
As ragged as thy locks,
In dark
Cimmerian desert ever dwell.
But come, thou Goddess
fair and free,
In heaven yclep’d
Euphrosyne,
And by men,
heart-easing Mirth,
Whom lovely Venus at a
birth
With two sister Graces
more
To ivy-crownèd Bacchus
bore;
Or whether (as some
sager sing)
The frolic Wind that
breathes the spring,
Zephyr with Aurora
playing,
As he met her once
a-Maying,
There on beds of
violets blue,
And fresh-blown roses
washed in dew,
Filled her with thee, a
daughter fair,
So buxom, blithe and
debonair.
Haste thee,
Nymph, and bring with thee
Jest and youthful
Jollity,
Quips, and Cranks, and
wanton Wiles,
Nods, and Becks, and
wreathèd Smiles,
Such as hang on Hebe’s
cheek,
And love to live in
dimple sleek;
Sport that wrinkled
Care derides,
And Laughter holding
both his sides.
Come, and trip it as ye
go,
On the light fantastic
toe;
And in thy right hand
lead with thee
The mountain Nymph,
sweet Liberty;
And, if I give thee
honour due,
Mirth, admit me of thy
crew,
To live with her, and
live with thee,
In unreprovèd
pleasures free;
To hear the lark begin
his flight,
And singing startle the
dull night,
From his watch-tower in
the skies,
Till the dappled Dawn
doth rise;
Then to come, in spite
of sorrow,
And at my window bid
good-morrow,
Through the sweet-briar
or the vine,
Or the twisted
eglantine;
While the cock with
lively din
Scatters the rear of
Darkness thin;
And to the stack, or
the barn-door,
Stoutly struts his
dames before:
Oft listening how the
hounds and horn
Cheerily rouse the
slumbering Morn,
From the side of some
hoar hill,
Through the high wood
echoing shrill:
Sometime walking, not
unseen,
By hedgerow elms, on
hillocks green,
Right against the
eastern gate,
Where the great Sun
begins his state,
Robed in flames and
amber light,
The clouds in thousand
liveries dight;
While the ploughman,
near at hand,
Whistles o’er the
furrowed land,
And the milkmaid
singeth blithe,
And the mower whets his
scythe,
And every shepherd
tells his tale
Under the hawthorn in
the dale.
Straight
mine eye hath caught new pleasures,
Whilst the lantskip
round it measures:
Russet lawns, and
fallows gray,
Where the nibbling
flocks do stray;
Mountains on whose
barren breast
The labouring clouds do
often rest;
Meadows trim with
daisies pied;
Shallow brooks, and
rivers wide.
Towers and battlements
it sees
Bosomed high in tufted
trees,
Where perhaps some
Beauty lies,
The Cynosure of
neighbouring eyes.
Hard by, a cottage
chimney smokes
From betwixt two aged
oaks,
Where Corydon and
Thyrsis met
Are at their savoury
dinner set
Of hearbs and other
country messes,
Which the neat-handed
Phillis dresses;
And then in haste her
bower she leaves,
With Thestylis to bind
the sheaves;
Or, if the earlier
season lead,
To the tanned haycock
in the mead.
Sometimes
with secure delight
The upland hamlets will
invite,
When the merry bells
ring round,
And the jocond rebecks
sound
To many a youth and
many a maid
Dancing in the
chequered shade;
And young and old come
forth to play
On a sunshine holyday,
Till the livelong
daylight fail:
Then to the spicy
nut-brown ale,
With stories told of
many a feat,
How fairy Mab the
junkets eat:
She was pinched and
pulled, she said;
And he, by Friar’s
lanthorn led,
Tells how the drudging
Goblin sweat
To earn his cream-bowl
duly set,
When in one night, ere
glimpse of morn,
His shadowy flail hath
threshed the corn
That ten day-labourers
could not end;
Then lies him down, the
lubber fiend,
And, stretched out all
the chimney’s length,
Basks at the fire his
hairy strength,
And crop-full out of
doors he flings,
Ere the first cock his
matin rings.
Thus done the tales, to
bed they creep,
By whispering winds
soon lulled asleep.
Towered cities please
us then,
And the busy hum of
men,
Where throngs of
Knights and Barons bold,
In weeds of peace, high
triumphs hold,
With store of Ladies,
whose bright eyes
Rain influence, and
judge the prize
Of wit or arms, while
both contend
Of win her grace whom
all commend.
There let Hymen oft
appear
In saffron robe, with
taper clear,
And pomp, and feast,
and revelry,
With mask and antique
pageantry;
Such sights as youthful
Poets dream
On summer eves by
haunted stream.
Then to the well-trod
stage anon,
If Johnson’s learned
sock be on,
Or sweetest
Shakespeare, Fancy’s child,
Warble his native
wood-notes wild.
And ever, against
eating cares,
Lap me in soft Lydian
airs,
Married to immortal
verse,
Such as the meeting
soul may pierce,
In notes with many a
winding bout
Of linkèd sweetness
long drawn out
With wanton heed and
giddy cunning,
The melting voice
through mazes running,
Untwisting all the
chains that tie
The hidden soul of
harmony;
That Orpheus’ self
may heave his head
From golden slumber on
a bed
Of heaped Elysian
flowers, and hear
Such strains as would
have won the ear
Of Pluto to have quite
set free
His half-regained
Eurydice.
These delights if thou
canst give,
Mirth, with thee I mean
to live.
Il
Penseroso
(1633)
HENCE, vain
deluding Joys,
The brood
of Folly without father bred!
How little you bested,
Or fill the
fixèd 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 sunbeams,
Or likest hovering
dreams,
The fickle
pensioners of Morpheus’ train.
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 starred 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-haired
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.
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,
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
retirèd Leisure,
That in trim gardens
takes his pleasure;
But, first and
chieftest, with thee bring
Him that yon soars on
golden wing,
Guiding the
fiery-wheelèd 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
accustomed oak.
Sweet bird, that
shunn’st the noise of folly,
Most musical, most
melancholy!
Thee, Chauntress, oft
the woods among
I woo, to hear they
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 bowed,
Stooping through a
fleecy cloud.
Oft, on a plat of
rising ground,
I hear the far-off
curfew sound,
Over some wide-watered
shore,
Swinging slow with
sullen roar;
Or, if the air will not
permit,
Some still removèd
place will fit,
Where glowing embers
through the room
Teach light to
counterfeit a gloom,
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;
And of those Dæmons
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 Thebs, or
Pelops’ line,
Or the tale of Troy
divine,
Or what (though rare)
or later age
Ennobled hath the
buskined stage.
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,
That owned the virtuous
ring and glass,
And of the wondrous
horse of brass
On which the Tartar
King did ride;
And if aught else great
Bards beside
In sage and solemn
tunes have sung,
Of turneys, and of
trophies hung,
Of forests, and
inchantments drear,
Where more is meant
than meets the ear.
Thus, Night, oft see me
in thy pale career,
Till civil-suited Morn
appear,
Not tricked and
frounced, as she wont
With the Attic boy to
hunt,
But kerchieft in a
comely cloud,
While rocking winds are
piping loud,
Or ushered with a
shower still,
When the gust hath
blown his fill,
Ending on the rustling
leaves,
With minute drops from
off the eaves.
And, when the sun
begins to fling
His flaring beams, me,
Goddess, bring
To archèd walks of
twilight groves,
And shadows brown, that
Sylvan loves,
Of pine, or monumental
oak,
Where the rude axe with
heaved stroke
Was never heard the
Nymphs to daunt,
Or fright them from
their hallowed haunt.
There, in close covert,
by some brook,
Where no profaner eye
may look,
Hide me from Day’s
garish eye,
While the bee with
honeyed thigh,
That at her flowery
work doth sing,
And the waters
murmuring,
With such consort as
they keep,
Entice the
dewy-feathered Sleep.
And let some strange
mysterious dream,
Wave at his wings in
airy stream,
Of lively portraiture
displayed,
Softly on my eyelids
laid.
And as I wake, sweet
music breathe
Above, about, or
underneath,
Sent by some Spirit to
mortals good,
Or the unseen Genius of
the wood.
But let my due feet
never fail
To walk the studious
cloister’s pale,
And love the high
embowèd roof,
With antick pillars
massy proof,
And storied windows
richly dight,
Casting a dim religious
light.
There let the pealing
organ blow,
To the full voiced
Quire below,
In service high and
anthems clear,
As may with sweetness,
through mine ear,
Dissolve me into
ecstasies,
And bring all Heaven
before mine eyes.
And may at last my
weary age
Find out the peaceful
hermitage,
The hairy gown and
mossy cell,
Where I may sit and
rightly spell,
Of every star that
Heaven doth shew,
And every hearb that
sips the dew;
Till old experience do
attain
To something like
prophetic strain.
These pleasures,
Melancholy, give
And I with thee will
choose to live.
0 comments