The dances ended, the Spirit epiloguises.

cean no

Sp. To the ocean now I fly,
And those happy climes that lie
Where day never shuts his eye,
Up in the broad fields of the sky :
There I suck the liquid air -
All amidst the gardens fair
Of Hesperus, and his daughters three
That sing about the golden tree:
Along the crisped shades and bowers
Revels the spruce and jocund Spring,
The Graces, and the rosy-bosom'd Hours,
Thither all their bounties bring ;
There eternal Summer dwells,
And west-winds, with musky wing,
About the cedarn alleys fling
Nard and cassia's balmy smells.
Iris there with humid bow
Waters the odorous banks, that blow
Flowers of more mingled hue
Than her purfled scarf can shew,

979 broad] MS. plain fields. Fairfax, B. viii. st. 57.
"O'er the broad fields of heaven's bright wildernesse.

Warton and Todd. 988 There] Milton's own edition, 1673, reads That there, but in the errata directs That to be omitted ; so it is by Tickell and Fenton, but silently readopted by Newton. Warton.

1000

1005

And drenches with Elysian dew
(List mortals, if your ears be true)
Beds of hyacinth and roses,
Where young Adonis oft reposes,
Waxing well of his deep wound
In slumber soft, and on the ground
Sadly sits th’ Assyrian queen ;
But far above in spangled sheen
Celestial Cupid her fam'd son advanc'd,
Holds his dear Psyche sweet intranc'd,
After her wand'ring labours long,
Till free consent the Gods among
Make her his eternal bride,
And from her fair unspotted side
Two blissful twins are to be born,
Youth and Joy; so Jove hath sworn.

But now my task is smoothly done,
I can fly, or I can run
Quickly to the green earth's end,
Where the bow'd welkin slow doth bend,
And from thence can soar as soon
To the corners of the moon.

Mortals, that would follow me,
Love Virtue, she alone is free;
She can teach ye how to climb

1010

1015

soar as soon

1020

1002 Assyrian) Tickell and Fenton read the Cyprian Queen.'

1017 corners) Macbeth, a. 3. s. 5. Upon the corner of the moon.' Warton.

Higher than the sphery chime:
Or, if Virtue feeble were,
Heav'n itself would stoop to her.

1021 sphery] “sphery chime' is the chime or music of the spheres. Mids. N. Dream, act ii. sc. 7, 'Hermia's sphery eyne.' Machin's Dumbe Knight, (Reed's Old Pl. iv. 447), “It was as silver as the chime of spheres. Herrick’s Hesp. p. 116, • Fall down from those thy chiming spheres.' Warton and Todd.

1023 stoop] 'bow. MS.

LYCIDAS.

In this Monody, the author bewails a learned friend, unfortunately

drowned in his passage from Chester on the Irish seas, 1637; and by occasion foretells the ruin of our corrupted clergy, then in their height.

Yer once more, O ye laurels, and once more
Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere,
I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude,
And with forc'd fingers rude,
Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year.
Bitter constraint, and sad occasion dear,
Compels me to disturb your season due :
For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime,
Young Lycidas, and hath not left bis peer:
Who would not sing for Lycidas ? He knew
Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhime.
He must not float upon his watery bier
Unwept, and welter to the parching wind,
Without the meed of some melodious tear.

10

Begin then, Sisters of the sacred well,
That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring;
Begin, and somewhat loudly sweep the string.
Hence with denial vain, and coy excuse;
So may some gentle Muse
With lucky words favour my destin'd urn,
And as he passes turn,
And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud.

For we were nurs’d upon the self-same hill,
Fed the same flock by fountain, shade, and rill.
Together both, ere the high lawns appeard 25
Under the opening eyelids of the morn,
We drove a-field, and both together heard
What time the gray-fly winds her sultry horn,
Battning our flocks with the fresh dews of night,
Oft till the star that rose, at evening, bright, 30
Toward heav'n's descent had slop'd his west'ring
Meanwhile the rural ditties were not mute, [wheel.
Temperd to thoaten flute;