V. TO A BIRD SINGING. SWEET Bird, that sing'st away the early hours VI. THE PRAISE OF A SOLITARY LIFE. THRICE happy he who by some shady grove, а Far from the clamorous world, doth live his own; b Though solitary, who is not alone, But doth converse with that eternal love. O how more sweet is bird's harmonious moan, 上 Or the hoarse sobbings of the widowed dove, Than those smooth whisperings near a prince's throne, Which good make doubtful, do the evil approve! Or how more sweet is Zephyr's wholesome breath, And sighs embalmed which new-born flowers unfold, How sweet are streams to poison drunk in gold! JOHN MILTON. I. WHEN THE ASSAULT WAS INTENDED TO THE CITY.* CAPTAIN, or Colonel, or Knight in arms, Whose chance on these defenceless doors may seize, Guard them, and him within protect from harms : " The great Emathian conqueror † bid spare Of sad Electra's poet had the power To save the Athenian walls from ruin bare.‡ * In 1642, during the civil wars; when the army of Charles the First had arrived at Brentford, against the poet's friends, the Republicans. † Alexander; when ninety thousand Thebans were killed, and thirty thousand taken prisoners. During the conquest of Athens by Lysander, when some verses of Euripides happened to be sung at a banquet given to a council of war. II. ON THE DETRACTION WHICH FOLLOWED UPON THE WRITING OF CERTAIN TREATISES. I DID but prompt the age to quit their clogs Which after held the sun and moon in fee.* For who loves that, must first be wise and good; The story of the peasants in Ovid, who were thus transformed for insulting Latona and her babes, Apollo and Diana. III. ON THE LATE MASSACRE IN PIEDMONT.* AVENGE, O Lord! thy slaughtered saints, whose bones To heaven. Their martyr's blood and ashes sow *In 1665, by order of the Duke of Savoy. It is delightful to be able to say, in this year 1856, that the slaughter has been "avenged" in a better manner than the stern poet desired; namely, by the erection of a Protestant Chapel in the capital of Piedmont, and under the auspices of a king of the Duke of Savoy's house. ان |