And by men heart-easing Mirth; The frolic wind that breathes the spring, And fresh-blown roses washed in dew, Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee Quips and Cranks and wanton Wiles, Such as hang on Hebe's cheek, And love to live in dimple sleek; And in thy right hand lead with thee 20 30 Mirth, admit me of thy crew, To live with her, and live with thee, In unreproved pleasures free; 40 To hear the lark begin his flight, And, singing, startle the dull night, Through the sweet-briar or the vine, Or the twisted eglantine; While the cock, with lively din, Oft listening how the hounds and horn By hedgerow elms, on hillocks green, 50 60 Hard by a cottage chimney smokes Are at their savoury dinner set Of herbs and other country messes, To the tanned haycock in the mead. When the merry bells ring round, To many a youth and many a maid And young and old come forth to play Then to the spicy nut-brown ale, Till the livelong daylight fail: With stories told of many a feat, How Faery Mab the junkets eat. She was pinched and pulled, she said; Tells how the drudging goblin sweat When in one night, ere glimpse of morn, 90 100 IIO And, stretched out all the chimney's length, Basks at the fire his hairy strength, Ere the first cock his matin rings. Thus done the tales, to bed they creep, And the busy hum of men, Where throngs of knights and barons bold, 120 In saffron robe, with taper clear, 130 If Jonson's learned sock be on, Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child, And ever, against eating cares, Lap me in soft Lydian airs, Such as the meeting soul may pierce, In notes with many a winding bout Of linked sweetness long drawn out The melting voice through mazes running, 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 140 Of Pluto to have quite set free 150 Mirth, with thee I mean to live. IL PENSEROSO. 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. 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; Prince Memnon's sister might beseem, Or that starred Ethiop queen that strove To set her beauty's praise above 20 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. |