IL
Penseroso
HENCE, vain deluding Joys,The brood of Folly without father bred!How little you besteadOr fill the fixed mind with all your toys!Dwell in some idle brain,And fancies fond with gaudy shapes possessAs thick and numberlessAs the gay motes that people the sunbeams,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 brightTo hit the sense of human sight,And therefore to our weaker viewO’erlaid with black, staid Wisdom’s hue;Black, but such as in esteemPrince Memnon’s sister might beseem,Or that starred Ethiop queen that stroveTo set her beauty’s praise aboveThe sea-nymphs, and their powers offended:Yet thou art higher far descended:Thee bright-haired Vesta, long of yore,To solitary Saturn bore;His daughter she; in Saturn’s reignSuch mixture was not held a stain:Oft in glimmering bowers and gladesHe met her, and in secret shadesOf woody Ida’s inmost grove,While yet there was no fear of Jove.Come, pensive Nun, devout and pure,Sober, steadfast, and demure,All in a robe of darkest grainFlowing with majestic trainAnd sable stole of Cipres lawnOver 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, tillWith a sad leaden downward castThou 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 ringAye round about Jove’s altar sing:And add to these retired LeisureThat in trim gardens takes his pleasure:—But first and chiefest, with thee bringHim 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 songIn her sweetest, saddest plight,Smoothing the rugged brow of Night,While Cynthia checks her dragon yokeGently o’er the accustomed oak.Sweet bird, that shunn’st the noise of folly,Most musical, most melancholy!Thee, chauntress, oft the woods among,I woo to hear thy even-song;And missing thee, I walk unseenOn the dry smooth-shaven green,To behold the wandering MoonRiding near her highest noon,Like one that had been led astrayThrough 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 groundI hear the far-off curfew soundOver 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 roomTeach light to counterfeit a gloom;Far from all resort of mirth,Save the cricket on the hearth,Or the bellman’s drowsy charmTo bless the doors from nightly harm.Or let my lamp at midnight hourBe seen in some high lonely tower,Where I may oft out-watch the BearWith thrice-great Hermes, or unsphereThe spirit of Plato, to unfoldWhat worlds or what vast regions holdThe immortal mind, that hath forsookHer mansion in this fleshly nook:And of those demons that are foundIn fire, air, flood, or under ground,Whose power hath a true consentWith planet, or with element.Sometime let gorgeous TragedyIn sceptered pall come sweeping by,Presenting Thebes, or Pelops’ line,Or the tale of Troy divine;Or what (though rare) of later ageEnnobled hath the buskined stage.But, O sad Virgin, that thy powerMight raise Musaeus from his bower,Or bid the soul of Orpheus singSuch notes as, warbled to the string,Drew iron tears down Pluto’s cheekAnd made Hell grant what Love did seek!Or call up him that left half-toldThe story of Cambuscan bold,Of Camball, and of Algarsife,And who had Canace to wifeThat owned the virtuous ring and glass;And of the wondrous horse of brassOn which the Tartar king did ride:And if aught else great bards besideIn sage and solemn tunes have sungOf tourneys 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 wontWith the Attic Boy to hunt,But kercheft in a comely cloudWhile rocking winds are piping loud,Or ushered with a shower still,When the gust hath blown his fill,Ending on the rustling leavesWith minute drops from off the eaves.And when the sun begins to flingHis flaring beams, me, goddess, bringTo arched walks of twilight groves,And shadows brown, that Sylvan loves,Of pine, or monumental oak,Where the rude axe, with heaved stroke,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 keepEntice the dewy-feathered Sleep;And let some strange mysterious dreamWave at his wings in airy streamOf lively portraiture displayed,Softly on my eyelids laid:And, as I wake, sweet music breatheAbove, about, or underneath,Sent by some Spirit to mortals good,Or the unseen Genius of the wood.But let my due feet never failTo walk the studious cloister’s pale,And love the high-embowed roof,With antique pillars massy proof,And storied windows richly dightCasting a dim religious light.There let the pealing organ blowTo the full-voiced quire belowIn 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 ageFind out the peaceful hermitage,The hairy gown and mossy cellWhere I may sit and rightly spellOf every star that heaven doth shew,And every herb that sips the dew;Till old experience do attainTo something like prophetic strain.These pleasures, Melancholy, give,And I with thee will choose to live.