Complete Poetry and Selected Prose of John Milton

Th’ express resemblance of the gods, is chang’d

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  Into som brutish form of wolf or bear

  Or Ounce,11 or tiger, hog, or bearded goat,

  All other parts remaining as they were,

  And they, so perfect is thir misery,

  Not once perceave thir foul disfigurement,

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  But boast themselves more comely then before

  And all thir freinds and native home forget

  To roul with pleasure in a sensual stie.

  Therfore when any favour’d of high Jove

  Chances to pass through this adventrous glade,

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  Swift as the sparkle of a glancing star

  I shoot from Heav’n to give him safe convoy

  As now I do: but first I must put off

  These my sky robes spun out of Iris woof12

  And take the weeds and likenes of a swain

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  That to the service of this house belongs,

  Who with his soft pipe and smooth-dittied song

  Well knows to still the wild winds when they roar,13

  And hush the waving woods, nor of less faith,

  And in this office of his mountain watch,

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  Likeliest and neerest to the present aid

  Of this occasion, but I hear the tread

  Of hatefull steps, I must be veiwles now.

  Comus enters with a charming rod in one hand, his glass in the other, with him a rout of monsters headed like sundry sorts of wild beasts, but otherwise like men and women, their apparell glistring; they com in making a riotous and unruly noise, with torches in their hands.

  Comus. The star that bids the shepherd fold,14

  Now the top of Heav’n doth hold,

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  And the gilded car of day

  His glowing axle doth allay15

  In the steep Atlantick stream,

  And the slope sun his upward beam

  Shoots against the dusky pole,

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  Pacing toward the other goal

  Of his chamber in the East.

  Mean while welcom Joy and feast,

  Midnight shout, and revelry,

  Tipsie dance, and jollity.

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  Braid your locks with rosie twine

  Dropping odours, dropping wine.

  Rigor now is gon to bed,

  And Advice with scrupulous head,

  Strict age, and sowr severity

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  With thir grave saws in slumber lie.

  We that are of purer fire

  Imitate the starry quire,10

  Who in thir nightly watchfull sphears

  Lead in swift round the months and years.

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  The sounds and seas with all thir finny drove

  Now to the moon in wavering morrice17 move,

  And on the tawny sands and shelves

  Trip the pert fairies, and the dapper elves.

  By dimpled brook and fountain brim,

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  The wood nymphs deckt with daysies trim

  Thir merry wakes18 and pastimes keep:

  What hath night to do with sleep?

  Night has better sweets to prove,

  Venus now wakes, and wak’ns Love.

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  Com let us our rights begin,

  ’Tis only daylight that makes sin

  Which these dun shades will ne’re report.

  Hail goddess of nocturnal sport,

  Dark-vaild Cotytto,19 t’ whom the secret flame

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  Of midnight torches burns; mysterious Dame

  That ne’re art call’d, but when the dragon womb

  Of Stygian darknes spitts her thickest gloom

  And makes one blot of all the air,

  Stay thy cloudy ebon chair,

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  Wherin thou rid’st with Hecat’,20 and befreind

  Us thy vow’d preists till utmost end

  Of all thy dues be don and none left out,

  Ere the blabbing eastern scout,

  The nice morn on th’ Indian steep

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  From her cabin’d loop hole peep,

  And to the tell-tale sun discry

  Our conceal’d solemnity.

  Com, knit hands, and beat the ground,

  In a light fantastick round.

  The Measure.

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  Break off, break off, I feel the different pace

  Of som chast footing neer about this ground,

  Run to your shrouds within these brakes and trees,

  Our number may affright. Som virgin sure

  (For so I can distinguish by mine art)

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  Benighted in these woods. Now to my charms,

  And to my wily trains;21 I shall e’re long

  Be well stock’t with as fair a herd as graz’d

  About my mother Circe. Thus I hurl

  My dazling spells into the spungy air,

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  Of power to cheat the eye with blear illusion

  And give it false presentments, lest the place

  And my quaint habits breed astonishment

  And put the damsel to suspicious flight,

  Which must not be, for that’s against my course;

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  I under fair pretence of freindly ends

  And well-plac’t words of glozing22 courtesie

  Baited with reasons not unplausible

  Wind me into the easie-hearted man,

  And hugg him into snares. When once her eye

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  Hath met the vertue of this magick dust,

  I shall appear som harmles villager

  Whom thrift keeps up about his country gear,

  But heer she comes, I fairly step aside

  And hearken, if I may, her buisness heer.

  The Lady enters.

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  Lady. This way the noise was, if mine ear be true,

  My best guide now; me thought it was the sound

  Of riot and ill-manag’d merriment,

  Such as the jocond flute or gamesom pipe

  Stirrs up amongst the loose unletter’d hinds,

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  When for thir teeming flocks, and granges full

  In wanton dance they praise the bounteous Pan23

  And thank the gods amiss. I should be loath

  To meet the rudeness and swill’d insolence

  Of such late wassailers; yet O where els

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  Shall I inform my unacquainted feet

  In the blind maze of this tangl’d Wood?

  My brothers when they saw me wearied out

  With this long way, resolving heer to lodge

  Under the spreading favour of these pines,

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  Stept, as they sed, to the next thicket side

  To bring me berries, or such cooling fruit

  As the kind hospitable woods provide.

  They left me then, when the gray-hooded Eev’n

  Like a sad votarist in palmers weeds24

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  Rose from the hindmost wheels of Phœbus wain.

  But where they are and why they came not back

  Is now the labour of my thoughts; ‘tis likeliest

  They had ingag’d thir wandring steps too far,

  And envious darknes, e’re they could return,

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  Had stoln them from me; els O theevish night

  Why shouldst thou, but for som fellonious end,

  In thy dark lantern25 thus close up the stars

  That nature hung in Heav’n, and fill’d thir lamps

  With everlasting oil, to give due light

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  To the misled and lonely travailer?

  This is the place, as well as I may guess,

  Whence eev’n now the tumult of loud mirth

  Was rife and perfet in my list’ning ear,

  Ye
t nought but single darknes do I find.

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  What might this be? A thousand fantasies

  Begin to throng into my memory

  Of calling shapes, and beckning shadows dire,

  And airy tongues, that syllable mens names

  On sands, and shoars, and desert wildernesses.

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  These thoughts may startle well, but not astound

  The vertuous mind, that ever walks attended

  By a strong siding champion conscience—

  O welcom pure-ey’d Faith, white-handed Hope,

  Thou flittering Angel girt with golden wings,

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  And thou unblemish’t form of Chastity,

  I see ye visibly, and now beleeve

  That he, the supreme good, t’ whom all things ill

  Are but as slavish officers of vengeance,

  Would send a glistring guardian if need were

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  To keep my life and honour unassail’d.

  Was I deceav’d, or did a sable cloud

  Turn forth her silver lining on the night?

  I did not err, there does a sable cloud

  Turn forth her silver lining on the night

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  And casts a gleam over this tufted grove.

  I cannot hallow to my brothers, but

  Such noise as I can make to be heard fardest

  Ile venter, for my new-enliv’n’d spirits

  Prompt me; and they perhaps are not far off.

  SONG

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  Sweet Echo, sweetest nymph that liv’st unseen

  Within thy airy cell

  By slow Mæander’s26 margent green,

  And in the violet-imbroider’d vale

  Where the love-lorn nightingale

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  Nightly to thee her sad song mourneth well.

  Canst thou not tell me of a gentle pair

  That likest thy Narcissus are?27

  O if thou have

  Hid them in som flowry Cave,

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  Tell me but where

  Sweet Queen of Parly, Daughter of the Sphear,

  So maist thou be translated to the skies,

  And give resounding grace to all Heav’ns harmonies.

  Comus. Can any mortal mixture of Earths mould

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  Breath such divine inchanting ravishment?

  Sure somthing holy lodges in that brest,

  And with these raptures moves the vocal air

  To testifie his hidd’n residence;

  How sweetly did they float upon the wings

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  Of silence, through the empty-vaulted night,

  At every fall28 smoothing the raven down

  Of darknes till she smil’d: I have oft heard

  My Mother Circe with the Sirens three,

  Amidst the flowry-kirtl’d Naiades

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  Culling thir potent hearbs, and balefull drugs,

  Who as they sung, would take the prison’d soul,

  And lap it in Elysium; Scylla29 wept,

  And chid her barking waves into attention,

  And fell Charybdis murmur’d soft applause:

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  Yet they in pleasing slumber lull’d the sense,

  And in sweet madnes rob’d it of it self,

  But such a sacred, and home-felt delight,

  Such sober certainty of waking bliss

  I never heard till now. Ile speak to her

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  And she shall be my Queen. Hail forren wonder

  Whom certain these rough shades did never breed

  Unless the Goddes that in rurall shrine

  Dwell’st heer with Pan or Silvan, by blest song

  Forbidding every bleak unkindly fog

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  To touch the prosperous growth of this tall wood.

  Lady. Nay gentle shepherd, ill is lost that praise

  That is addrest to unattending ears,

  Not any boast of skill, but extreme shift

  How to regain my sever’d company

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  Compell’d me to awake the courteous Echo

  To give me answer from her mossie couch.

  Comus. What chance good Lady, hath bereft you thus?

  Lady. Dim darknes, and this leavy Labyrinth.

  Comus. Could that divide you from neer-ushering guides?

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  Lady. They left me weary on a grassie terf.

  Comus. By falshood, or discourtesie or why?

  Lady. To seek i’th valley som cool freindly spring.

  Comus. And left your fair side all unguarded Lady?

  Lady. They were but twain, and purpos’d quick return.

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  Comus. Perhaps fore-stalling night prevented them.

  Lady. How easie my misfortune is to hit!

  Comus. Imports thir loss, beside the present need?

  Lady. No less then if I should my brothers loose.

  Comus. Were they of manly prime, or youthfull bloom?

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  Lady. As smooth as Hebe’s thir unrazor’d lips.

  Comus. Two such I saw, what time the labour’d ox

  In his loose traces from the furrow came,

  And the swink’t30 hedger at his supper sate;

  I saw ‘em under a green mantling vine

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  That crawls along the side of yon small hill,

  Plucking ripe clusters from the tender shoots,

  Thir port was more then human, as they stood;

  I took it for a faery vision

  Of som gay creatures of the element

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  That in the colours of the rainbow live

  And play i’th plighted31 clouds. I was aw-strook,

  And as I past, I worshipt; if those you seek

  It were a journey like the path to Heav’n,

  To help you find them.

  Lady. Gentle villager

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  What readiest way would bring me to that place?

  Comus. Due west it rises from this shrubby point.

  Lady. To find out that, good shepherd, I suppose,

  In such a scant allowance of star-light,

  Would overtask the best land-pilots art,

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  Without the sure guess of well-practiz’d feet.

  Comus. I know each lane, and every alley green

  Dingle, or bushy dell of this wide wood,

  And every bosky bourn32 from side to side

  My dayly walks and ancient neighbourhood,

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  And if your stray attendance be yet lodg’d,

  Or shroud within these limits, I shall know

  Ere morrow wake, or the low-roosted lark

  From her thach’t pallat rowse, if otherwise

  I can conduct you Lady, to a low

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  But loyal cottage, where you may be safe

  Till furder quest.

  Lady. Shepherd I take thy word,

  And trust thy honest offer’d courtesie,

  Which oft is sooner found in lowly sheds

  With smoaky rafters, then in tapstry halls

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  And courts of princes, where it first was nam’d,

  And yet is most pretended: In a place

  Less warranted then this, or less secure

  I cannot be, that I should fear to change it;

  Eye me blest providence, and square my triall

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  To my proportion’d strength. Shepherd lead on.—

  The two Brothers.

  Elder Brother. Unmuffle ye faint stars, and thou fair moon

  That wontst to love the travailers benizon,

  Stoop thy pale visage through an amber cloud,

  And disinherit Chaos, that raigns heer

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  In double night of darknes, and of shades;

  Or if your influence be quite damm’d up

 
With black usurping mists, som gentle taper

  Though a rush33 candle from the wicker hole

  Of som clay habitation visit us

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  With thy long levell’d rule of streaming light,

  And thou shalt be our star of Arcady,

  Or Tyrian Cynosure.34

  2 Brother. Or if our eyes

  Be barr’d that happines, might we but hear

  The folded flocks pen’d in thir watled cotes,

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  Or sound of pastoral reed with oaten stops,

  Or whistle from the lodge, or village cock

  Count the night watches to his feathery Dames,

  ’Twould be som solace yet, som little chearing

  In this close dungeon of innumerous bows.

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  But O that haples virgin our lost sister,

  Where may she wander now, whether betake her

  From the chill dew, amongst rude burrs and thistles?

  Perhaps som cold bank is her boulster now

  Or ‘gainst the rugged bark of som broad Elm

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  Leans her unpillow’d head fraught with sad fears.

  What if in wild amazement, and affright,

  Or while we speak within the direfull grasp

  Of Savage hunger, or of Savage heat?

  Elder Brother. Peace brother, be not over-exquisite35

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  To cast the fashion of uncertain evils;

  For grant they be so, while they rest unknown,

  What need a man forestall his date of grief,

  And run to meet what he would most avoid?

  Or if they be but false alarms of Fear,

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  How bitter is such self-delusion?

  I do not think my sister so to seek,

  Or so unprincipl’d in vertues book,

  And the sweet peace that goodnes bosoms ever,

  As that the single want of light and noise

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  (Not being in danger, as I trust she is not)

  Could stir the constant mood of her calm thoughts,

  And put them into misbecomming plight.

  Vertue could see to do what vertue would