SIR WILLIAM DAVENANT. 1605-1668. [“ Madagascar, with other Poems." 1635.] SONG. THE SOLDIER GOING TO THE FIELD. PRESERVE thy sighs, unthrifty girl! Thy tears to thread instead of pearl, The trumpet makes the echo hoarse, For I must go where lazy Peace But first I'll chide thy cruel theft: Who being of my heart bereft, Can have no heart to fight? Thou know'st the sacred laws of old, Thy payment shall but double be; SONG. The lark now leaves his watery nest, And to implore your light, he sings: The merchant bows unto the seaman's star, The ploughman from the sun his season takes; But still the lover wonders what they are, Who look for day before his mistress wakes. Awake, awake! break through your veils of lawn! Then draw your curtains and begin the dawn. JOHN MILTON. 1608-1674. THE history of Milton's wives, and his checkered experience of married life, is well known; but the story of his early loves, if he had any, is irrevocably lost. Everybody has read the romantic anecdote of the young Italian lady of rank, who, travelling in England when he was a student at Cambridge, found him one day asleep under a tree, and, alighting from her carriage, was so much struck by his beauty that she wrote in pencil a madrigal of Guarini, "Occhi stelle mortali," which she slipped into his hand, and then pursued her journey. When he awoke he read the lines with amazement, and learning the way in which he came by them, conceived such a passion for the fair unknown, that he afterwards journeyed to Italy in search of her. A similar story is told of him in Rome, the scene being shifted to the suburbs of that city, and the date changed to correspond with the period of his visit thither, but it is as mythical as the former one. There is not a word of truth in either. That Milton did travel in Italy, where he met one or two ladies who interested him, is certain; but study, and not love, was the cause of his journey. The first of his Italian heroines, if I may call them such, was the celebrated singer, Leonora Baroni, whom he met at Rome, in the palace of Cardinal Barberini, where he had frequent opportunities of hearing her sing. He celebrated her musical talents in three Latin epigrams, which contain nothing that can be twisted into a declaration of love. Of the second lady, to whom he wrote four Italian sonnets, nothing is known. He is supposed by his latest biographer, Mr. Masson, to have met her in, or near, Bologna, in the spring of 1639. She was for a long time thought to have been a German lady, the word Rheno in the second line of one of the sonnets being interpreted to mean the German Rhine; but Mr. Masson shows that such an interpretation is unnecessary, there being a river Rheno near Bologna, in which city she probably resided. The "deceased wife" of the last sonnet was Milton's second wife, Catharine Woodcock. She married the poet in 1656, the fourth year of his blindness, and died in childbed within a year after her marriage. His touching tribute to her memory was written shortly after her death. I have used Cowper's version of the Italian sonnets. It is an elegant one, and, bating the mistake of the Rheno for the Rhine, sufficiently faithful for poetical purposes. Fair Lady! whose harmonious name the Rhine, Through all his grassy vales, delights to hear, Base were indeed the wretch who could forbear To love a spirit elegant as thine, That manifests a sweetness all divine, Nor knows a thousand winning acts to spare, And graces, which Love's bow and arrows are, Tempering thy virtues in a softer shine. When gracefully thou speak'st, or singest gay, Such strains as might the senseless forest move, Ah then-turn each his eyes and ears away, Who feels himself unworthy of thy love! As on a hill-top rude, when closing day So, on my tongue these accents, new and rare, And Thames exchange for Arno's fair domain; So Love has willed, and ofttimes Love has shown That what he wills, he never wills in vain. O that this hard and sterile breast might be To Him, who plants from Heaven, a soil as free! TO CHARLES DEODATI. Charles, and I say it wondering, thou must know Yet think me not thus dazzled by the flow Of golden locks, or damask cheeks; more rare Words exquisite, of idioms more than one, And from her sphere draw down the labouring moon; With such fire-darting eyes that, should I fill My ears with wax, she would enchant me still. Lady! It cannot be but that thine eyes Must be my sun, such radiance they display, Through horrid Libya's sandy desert lies. Where most I suffer. Of what kind are they, While others to my tearful eyes ascend, Whence my sad nights in showers are ever drowned, Enamoured, artless, young, on foreign ground, Uncertain whither from myself to fly; To thee, dear Lady, with an humble sigh Let me devote my heart, which I have found By certain proofs, not few, intrepid, sound, Good, and addicted to conceptions high: When tempests shake the world, and fire the sky, It rests in adamant self-wrapt around, As safe from envy, and from outrage rude, From hopes and fears that vulgar minds abuse, |