Me softer airs befit, and softer strings

Of lute, or viol still, more apt for mournful things.

V.

Befriend me, Night, best patroness of grief;
Over the pole thy thickest mantle throw,
And work my flatter'd fancy to belief,

80

That heaven and earth are colour'd with my woe;

My sorrows are too dark for day to know:

The leaves should all be black whereon I write ;

34

And letters, where my tears have wash'd a wannish white.

VI.

See, see the chariot, and those rushing wheels,
That whirl'd the Prophet up at Chebar flood;
My spirit some transporting Cherub feels,
To bear me where the towers of Salem stood,
Once glorious towers, now sunk in guiltless blood:
There doth my soul in holy vision sit,

In pensive trance, and anguish, and ecstatick fit.

VII.

Mine eye hath found that sad sepulchral rock
That was the casket of Heaven's richest store;
And here, though grief my feeble hands up lock,
Yet on the soften'd quarry would I score

My plaining verse as lively as before;

For sure so well instructed are my tears,
That they would fitly fall in order'd characters.

VIII.

Or should I thence, hurried on viewless wing,
Take up a weeping on the mountains wild,
The gentle neighbourhood of grove and spring
Would soon unbosom all their echoes mild;
And I (for grief is easily beguiled)

40

45

50

Might think the infection of my sorrows loud
Had got a race of mourners on some pregnant cloud.

55

This subject the author finding to be above the years he had when he wrote it, and nothing satisfied with what was begun, left it unfinished.

28. Of lute, or viol: That is, gentle; not noisy or loud like the trumpet.

34. The leares, &c. Conceits were not confined to words only. Mr. Stevens has a volume of Elegies, in which the paper is black and the letters white: that is, in all the title-pages. Every intermediate leaf is also black. What a sudden change, from this childish idea to the noble apostrophe, the sublime rapture and imagi uation of the next stanza.-T. WARTON.

43. That sad sepulchral rock: That is, the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem.

51. Take up a weeping. Jer. ix. 10. 52. The gentle neighbourhood. A sweetly beautiful couplet, which, with the two preceding lines, opened the stanza so well, that I particularly grieve to find it terminate feebly in a most miserably dis gusting concetto.-DUNSTER.

ODES.

UPON THE CIRCUMCISION.*

YE flaming Powers, and winged Warriours bright,
That erst with musick, and triumphant song,
First heard by happy watchful shepherds' ear,
So sweetly sung your joy the clouds along
Through the soft silence of the listening night;
Now mourn; and, if sad share with us to bear
Your fiery essence can distil no tear,
Burn in your sighs, and borrow
Seas wept from our deep sorrow:

He, who with all Heaven's heraldry whilere
Enter'd the world, now bleeds to give us ease:
Alas, how soon our sin

Sore doth begin

His infancy to seize !

O more exceeding love, or law more just?
Just law indeed, but more exceeding love!
For we, by rightful doom remediless,

Were lost in death, till he that dwelt above
High throned in secret bliss, for us frail dust
Emptied his glory, ev'n to nakedness;

And that great covenant which we still transgress
Entirely satisfied;

And the full wrath beside

Of vengeful justice bore for our excess;

And seals obedience first, with wounding smart,

This day; but, O! ere long,

Huge pangs and strong

Will pierce more near his heart.

ON THE DEATH OF A FAIR INFANT, DYING OF A COUGH.†

I.

O FAIREST flower, no sooner blown but blasted.
Soft silken primrose fading timelessly,

The "Circumcision" is better than the "Passion," and has two or three Miltonic nes.-BRYDGES.

The Elegy on the Death of a Fair Infant" is praised by Warton, and we'l characterized in his last note upon it; but it has more of research and laboured fancy than of feeling, and is not a general favourite.-BRYDGES. It was written at the age of seventeen.

20. Emptied his glory. An expression | r putation,"-but, as it is in the original, taken from Phil. ii. 7, but not as in our (EAVTOV EKEYWσe,) "He emptied himself." translation,-"He made himself of no-NEWTON.

Summer's chief honour, if thou hadst out-lasted
Bleak Winter's force that made thy blossom dry;
For he, being amorous on that lovely dye

That did thy cheek envermeil, thought to kiss,
But kill'd, alas! and then bewail'd his fatal bliss.

II.

For since grim Aquilo, his charioteer,

10

By boisterous rape the Athenian damsel got,
He thought it touch'd his deity full near,
If likewise he some fair one wedded not,
Thereby to wipe away the infamous blot
Of long uncoupled bed and childless eld,
Which, 'mongst the wanton gods, a foul reproach was held.

III.

So, mounting up in icy-pearled car,

Through middle empire of the freezing air
He wander'd long, till thee he spied from far;

15

There ended was his quest, there ceased his care.
Down he descended from his snow-soft chair;

20

But, all unwares, with his cold-kind embrace.
Unhous'd thy virgin soul from her fair biding-place.

IV.

Yet art thou not inglorious in thy fate;
For so Apollo, with unweeting hand,
Whilom did slay his dearly-loved mate,

25

Young Hyacinth, born on Eurotas' strand,

Young Hyacinth, the pride of Spartan land;
But then transform'd him to a purple flower:

Alack, that so to change thee Winter had no power!

V.

Yet can I not persuade me thou art dead,

Or that thy corse corrupts in earth's dark womb,
Or that thy beauties lie in wormy bed,

Hid from the world in a low-delved tomb.
Could Heaven for pity thee so strictly doom?
O, no! for something in thy face did shine
Above mortality, that show'd thou wast divine.

8. Aquilo, or Boreas, the North wind, | enamoured of Orithyin, the daughter of Erechtheus, King of Athens.

12. Infamous, the common accent in old English poetry.

23. For so Apollo, &c. From these lines one would suspect, although it does not immediately follow, that a boy was the subject of the Ode; but in the last stanza the poet says expressly,

Then thou, the mother of so sweet a child,
Her false-imagined loss cease to lament.

Yet, in the eighth stanza, the person la mented is alternately supposed to have been sent down to earth in the shape of two divinities, one of whom is styled a "just maid," and the other a "sweet smiling youth." But the child was cer tainly a niece, a daughter of Milton's sister Philips.

40. Were, instead of are, for rhyme.47. Earth's sons, the giants.-50. Maid, Justice.-54. Youth, Mercy.

67. To turn swift-rushing, &c. Among

VI.

Resolve me then, O soul most surely blest,
(If so it be that thou these plaints dost hear,)
Tell me, bright spirit, where'er thou hoverest;
Whether above that high first-moving sphere,
Or in the Elysian fields, (if such there were,)

O, say me true, if thou wert mortal wight,
And why from us so quickly thou didst take thy flight?

VII.

Wert thou some star, which from the ruin'd roof
Of shak'd Olympus by mischance didst fall;
Which careful Jove in Nature's true behoof
Took up, and in fit place did reinstall?
Or did of late Earth's sons besiege the wall

Of sheeny Heaven, and thou, some goddess fled,
Amongst us here below to hide thy nectar'd head?

VIII

Or wert thou that just Maid, who once before
Forsook the hated earth, O, tell me sooth,
And cam'st again to visit us once more?
Or wert thou that sweet-smiling youth?

Or that crown'd matron sage, white-robed Truth?
Or any other of that heavenly brood,

Let down in cloudy throne to do the world some good?

IX.

Or wert thou of the golden-winged host,
Who, having clad thyself in human weed,
To earth from thy prefixed seat didst post,

And after short abode fly back with speed,

60

As if to show what creatures heaven doth breed;
Thereby to set the hearts of men on fire

To scorn the sordid world, and unto heaven aspire?

X.

But, O! why didst thou not stay here below
To bless us with thy Heaven-loved innocence,
To slake his wrath whom sin hath made our foe,
To turn swift-rushing black Perdition hence,
Or drive away the slaughtering Pestilence,

the blessings which the Heaven-loved innocence of this child might have imparted, by remaining upon earth, the application to present circumstances, the supposition that she might have averted the pesti lence now raging in the kingdom, is happily and beautifully conceived. On the whole, from a boy of seventeen, this Ode is an extraordinary effort of fancy, ex

65

pression, and versification; even in the conceits, which are many, we perceive strong and peculiar marks of genius. I think Milton has here given a very re markable specimen of his ability to suc ceed in the Spenserian stanza. He moves with great ease and address amidst the embarrassment of a frequent return of rhyme.-T. WARTON.

To stand 'twixt us and our deserved smart?

But thou canst best perform that office where thou art.

XI.

70

Then thou, the mother of so sweet a child,
Her false-imagined loss cease to lament,
And wisely learn to curb thy sorrows wild:
Think what a present thou to God hast sent,
And render him with patience what he lent.
This, if thou do, he will an offspring give,
That, till the world's last end, shall make thy name to live.

ON TIME.*

FLY, envious Time, till thou run out thy race;
Call on the lazy leaden-stepping hours,
Whose speed is but the heavy plummet's pace;
And glut thyself with what thy womb devours,
Which is no more than what is false and vain,
And merely mortal dross;

So little is our loss,

So little is thy gain!

For when as each thing bad thou hast entomb'd,
And last of all thy greedy self consumed,

Then long Eternity shall greet our bliss

75

With an individual kiss;

About the supreme throne

With Truth, and Peace, and Love, shall ever shine

Of him, to whose happy-making sight alone

When once our heavenly-guided soul shall climb:

Then, all this earthy grossness quit,

Attired with stars, we shall for ever sit,

Triumphing over Death, and Chance, and thee, O Time.

AT A SOLEMN MUSICK.†

BLEST pair of Sirens, pledges of Heaven's joy;
Sphere-born harmonious sisters, Voice and Verse;

15

20

* In Milton's manuscript, written with his own hand, the title is,-"On Time. To be set on a clock-case."

The "Ode at a Solemn Musick" is a short prelude to the strain of genius which produced "Paradise Lost." Warton says, that perhaps there are no finer lines in Miiton than one long passage which he cites, (17-24.) I must say that this is going a little too far. That they are very fine I admit; but the sublime philosophy, to which he alludes as their prototype, must not be put in comparison with the foun tains of "Paradise Lost." So far they are exceedingly curious, that they show how early the poet had constructed in his own mind the language of his divine imagery, and how rich and vigorous his style was, almost in his boyhood.—BRYDGES.

12. Individual: Eternal, inseparable.

14. Sincerely: Purely, perfectly.