Hence, vain deluding Joys,
The brood of Folly without father bred!
How little you
Or fill the fixed mind with all your toys!
Dwell in some idle brain,
And fancies fond with gaudy shapes possess,
As thick and
As the gay motes that people the sun-beams,
Or likest hovering dreams,
The fickle pensioners of Morpheus' train.
But, hail! thou Goddess sage and holy!
Hail, divinest Melancholy!
Whose saintly visage is too
To hit the sense of human sight,
And therefore to our weaker viewO'erlaid with black, staid Wisdom's hue;
Black, but such as in
Prince Memnon's sister might beseem,
Or that starred Ethiop queen that
To set her beauty's praise
The Sea-Nymphs, and their powers offended.
Yet thou art higher far descended:
Thee bright-haired Vesta long of
To solitary Saturn bore;
His daughter she; in Saturn's
Such mixture was not held a stain.
Oft in glimmering bowers and
He met her, and in secret
Of woody Ida's inmost grove,
Whilst yet there was no fear of Jove.
Come, pensive Nun, devout and pure,
Sober, steadfast, and demure,
All in a robe of darkest grain,
Flowing with majestic train,
And sable stole of cypress
Over thy decent shoulders drawn.
Come; but keep thy wonted state,
With even step, and musing gait,
And looks commercing with the skies,
Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes:
There, held in holy passion still,
Forget thyself to marble,
With a sad leaden downward
Thou fix them on the earth as fast.
And join with thee calm Peace and Quiet,
Spare Fast, that oft with gods doth diet,
And hears the Muses in a
Aye round about Jove's altar sing;
And add to these retired Leisure,
That in trim gardens takes his pleasure;
But, first and chiefest, with thee
Him that yon soars on golden wing,
Guiding the fiery-wheeled throne,
The Cherub Contemplation;
And the mute Silence hist along,'Less Philomel will deign a song,
In her sweetest saddest plight,
Smoothing the rugged brow of Night,
While Cynthia checks her dragon
Gently o'er the accustomed oak.
Sweet bird, that shunn'st the noise of folly,
Most musical, most melancholy!
Thee, chauntress, oft the woods amongI woo, to hear thy even-song;
And, missing thee,
I walk
On the dry smooth-shaven green,
To behold the wandering moon,
Riding near her highest noon,
Like one that had been led
Through the heaven's wide pathless way,
And oft, as if her head she bowed,
Stooping through a fleecy cloud.
Oft, on a plat of rising ground,
I hear the far-off curfew sound,
Over some wide-watered shore,
Swinging slow with sullen roar;
Or, if the air will not permit,
Some still removed place will fit,
Where glowing embers through the
Teach light to counterfeit a gloom,
Far from all resort of mirth,
Save the cricket on the hearth,
Or the bellman's drowsy
To bless the doors from nightly harm.
Or let my lamp, at midnight hour,
Be seen in some high lonely tower,
Where I may oft outwatch the Bear,
With thrice great Hermes, or
The spirit of Plato, to
What worlds or what vast regions
The immortal mind that hath
Her mansion in this fleshly nook;
And of those demons that are
In fire, air, flood, or underground,
Whose power hath a true
With planet or with element.
Sometime let gorgeous
In sceptred pall come sweeping by,
Presenting Thebes, or Pelops' line,
Or the tale of Troy divine,
Or what (though rare) of later
Ennobled hath the buskined stage.
But,
O sad Virgin! that thy
Might raise Musaeus from his bower;
Or bid the soul of Orpheus
Such notes as, warbled to the string,
Drew iron tears down Pluto's cheek,
And made Hell grant what love did seek;
Or call up him that left
The story of Cambuscan bold,
Of Camball, and of Algarsife,
And who had Canace to wife,
That owned the virtuous ring and glass,
And of the wondrous horse of
On which the Tartar king did ride;
And if aught else great bards
In sage and solemn tunes have sung,
Of turneys, and of trophies hung,
Of forests, and enchantments drear,
Where more is meant than meets the ear.
Thus,
Night, oft see me in thy pale career,
Till civil-suited Morn appear,
Not tricked and frounced, as she was
With the Attic boy to hunt,
But kerchieft in a comely
While rocking winds are piping loud,
Or ushered with a shower still,
When the gust hath blown his fill,
Ending on the rustling leaves,
With minute-drops from off the eaves.
And, when the sun begins to
His flaring beams, me,
Goddess,
To arched walks of twilight groves,
And shadows brown, that Sylvan loves,
Of pine, or monumental oak,
Where the rude axe with heaved
Was never heard the nymphs to daunt,
Or fright them from their hallowed haunt.
There, in close covert, by some brook,
Where no profaner eye may look,
Hide me from day's garish eye,
While the bee with honeyed thigh,
That at her flowery work doth sing,
And the waters murmuring,
With such consort as they keep,
Entice the dewy-feathered Sleep.
And let some strange mysterious
Wave at his wings, in airy
Of lively portraiture displayed,
Softly on my eyelids laid;
And, as I wake, sweet music
Above, about, or underneath,
Sent by some Spirit to mortals good,
Or the unseen Genius of the wood.
But let my due feet never
To walk the studious cloister's pale,
And love the high embowed roof,
With antique pillars massy proof,
And storied windows richly dight,
Casting a dim religious light.
There let the pealing organ blow,
To the full-voiced quire below,
In service high and anthems clear,
As may with sweetness, through mine ear,
Dissolve me into ecstasies,
And bring all Heaven before mine eyes.
And may at last my weary
Find out the peaceful hermitage,
The hairy gown and mossy cell,
Where I may sit and rightly
Of every star that heaven doth shew,
And every herb that sips the dew,
Till old experience do
To something like prophetic strain.
These pleasures,
Melancholy, give;
And I with thee will choose to live.'Il Penseroso is the thoughtful melancholy man; and Mr.
Thyer concurred with me in observing that this poem both in its model and principal circumstances is taken from a song in praise of melancholy in Fletcher's Comedy call'd "The Nice Valor or Passionate Madman."(line 18:
Prince Memnon's sister...):
Memnon, king of Ethiopia, son of Tithonus by Aurora, repairing with a great host to the relief of Priam king of Troy, was there slain by Achilles. -Peck.(line 19:
Or that starr'd Ethiop queen, &c):
Cassiope, wife of Cepheus king of Ethiopia, after having triumphed over all the beauties of her age, daring to compare herself to the Nereids, raised their indignation against her to such a degree, that they sent a prodigious whale into the country, so that to appease them she was commanded by the oracle to expose her daughter Andromeda, to be devoured by the monster; but Perseus delivered Andromeda, and procured Cassiope to be taken into Heaven; for which last reason our author here calls the "starr'd Ethiop queen." -Peck.(line 23:
Thee bright-hair'd Vesta, &c):
As Milton here is speaking of one of the Goddesses of the Ancients, he very judiciously adopts their manner of describing them by some epithet distinguishing the color of their eyes, hair &c ....
Saturn was always considered by those philosophers, who embrac'd the opinion of planetary influences, as presiding over persons of a gloomy turn, and this cast of mind temper'd and refin'd with a proper mixture of fire, which the Ancients worshipt under the name of Vesta, is the best adapted to relish such pleasures as the poet is here describing.-Thyer.(line 61:
Sweet bird...., &c.):
It is remarkable that here he begins his time from evening, as in L'Allegro from the early morning, and here with the nightingale as there with the lark. (line 74:
I hear the far-off Curfeu sound,...&c):
William the Conqueror, in the first year of his reign, commanded that in every town and village a bell should be rung every night at eight of the clock, and that all persons should then put out their fire and candle, and go to bed; the ringing of which bell was called "Curfeu",
Fr., "Couvre-feu", that is "Cover-fire."(line 88:
With thrice great Hermes,...):
Hermes Trismegistus, the Egyptian philosopher, florished a little after Moses.
He maintained the truth of one God against the idolatry and polytheism of his countrymen. -Peck.(line 88: ----- or
The spirit of Plato to unfold...&c):
The spirit of Plato is rightly summon'd to unfold these particular notions, for he has treated more largely than any of the philosophers, concerning the separate state of the soul after death, and concerning Demons residing in the elements, and influencing the planets, and directing the course of nature.(line 109:
Or call up him that left half
The story of Cambuscan bold, ...&c):
He means Chaucer and his Squire's Tale, wherein Cambuscan is king of Sarra in Tartary, and has two sons Algarsife and Camball, and a daughter named Canace. (line 125:
But kercheft in a comely cloud,...):
Kerchef is a head dress from the French, "couvre chef."(line 167:
And may at last my weary age ...&c):
There is something extremely pleasing and proper in this last circumstance, not merely as it varies and inlarges the picture, but as it adds such a perfection and completeness to it, by conducting the Penseroso so happily to the last scene of life, as leaves the reader's mind fully satisfied.~ Th.
Newton,
Milton's Works, 2nd edition, 1753.
