The Complete Poetry of John Milton (31 page)

   205     
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.

   210     
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,

   215     
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

   220     
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

   225     
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.

   230  
      
       
Sweet Echo, sweetest nymph that liv’st unseen

     
                                   
Within thy airy cell

    
                     
By slow
Mæander’s
²⁶
margent green
,

           
      
       
               
And in the violet-imbroider’d vale

    
                     
Where the love-lorn nightingale

   235  
      
       
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
,

   240         
             
                      
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

   245     
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

   250     
Of silence, through the empty-vaulted night,

               
At every fall
²⁸
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

   255     
Culling thir potent hearbs, and balefull drugs,

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

               
And lap it in
Elysium; Scylla
²⁹
wept,

               
And chid her barking waves into attention,

               
And fell
Charybdis
murmur’d soft applause:

   260     
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

   265     
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

   270     
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

   275     
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?

   280  
      
       
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.

   285  
      
       
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?

   290  
      
       
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’t
³⁰
hedger at his supper sate;

               
I saw ‘em under a green mantling vine

   295     
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

   300     
That in the colours of the rainbow live

               
And play i’th plighted
³¹
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

   305     
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,

   310     
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 bourn
³²
from side to side

               
My dayly walks and ancient neighbourhood,

   315     
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

   320     
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

   325     
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

   330     
To my proportion’d strength. Shepherd lead on.—

           
      
       
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

   335     
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 rush
³³
candle from the wicker hole

               
Of som clay habitation visit us

   340     
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,