L’Allegro
HENCE, loathed Melancholy,Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight bornIn Stygian cave forlorn,’Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy!Find out some uncouth cellWhere brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wingsAnd the night-raven sings;There under ebon shades, and low-browed rocksAs ragged as thy locks,In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell.
But come, thou goddess fair and free,In heaven yclept Euphrosyne,And by men, heart-easing Mirth,Whom lovely Venus at a birthWith two sister Graces moreTo ivy-crowned Bacchus bore;Or whether (as some sager sing)The frolic wind that breathes the spring,Zephyr, with Aurora playing,As he met her once a-Maying—There on beds of violets blueAnd fresh-blown roses washed in dewFilled her with thee, a daughter fair,So buxom, blithe, and debonair.Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with theeJest, and youthful jollity,Quips, and cranks, and wanton wiles,Nods, and becks, and wreathed smiles,Such as hang on Hebe’s cheek,And love to live in dimple sleek;Sport that wrinkled Care derides,And Laughter holding both his sides:—Come, and trip it as you goOn the light fantastic toe;And in thy right hand lead with theeThe mountain-nymph, sweet Liberty;And if I give thee honour due,Mirth, admit me of thy crew,To live with her, and live with theeIn unreproved pleasures free;To hear the lark begin his flightAnd singing startle the dull nightFrom his watch-tower in the skies,Till the dappled dawn doth rise;Then to come, in spite of sorrow,And at my window bid good-morrowThrough the sweetbriar, or the vine,Or the twisted eglantine:While the cock with lively dinScatters the rear of darkness thin,And to the stack, or the barn-door,Stoutly struts his dames before:Oft listening how the hounds and hornCheerly rouse the slumbering morn,From the side of some hoar hill,Through the high wood echoing shrill:Sometime walking, not unseen,By hedge-row elms, on hillocks green,Right against the eastern gateWhere the great Sun begins his stateRobed in flames and amber light,The clouds in thousand liveries dight;While the ploughman, near at hand,Whistles o’er the furrowed land,And the milkmaid singeth blithe,And the mower whets his scythe,And every shepherd tells his taleUnder the hawthorn in the dale.Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasuresWhilst the landscape round it measures;Russet lawns, and fallows gray,Where the nibbling flocks do stray;Mountains, on whose barren breastThe labouring clouds do often rest;Meadows trim with daisies pied,Shallow brooks, and rivers wide;Towers and battlements it seesBosomed high in tufted trees,Where perhaps some Beauty lies,The cynosure of neighbouring eyes.Hard by, a cottage chimney smokesFrom betwixt two aged oaks,Where Corydon and Thyrsis, met,Are at their savoury dinner setOf herbs, and other country messes,Which the neat-handed Phillis dresses;And then in haste her bower she leaves,With Thestylis to bind the sheaves;Or, if the earlier season lead,To the tanned haycock in the mead.Sometimes with secure delightThe upland hamlets will invite,When the merry bells ring round,And the jocund rebecks soundTo many a youth and many a maid,Dancing in the chequered shade;And young and old come forth to playOn a sunshine holiday,Till the live-long day-light fail:Then to the spicy nut-brown ale,With stories told of many a feat,How Faery Mab the junkets eat:—She was pinched and pulled, she said;And he by Friar’s lantern led;Tells how the grudging Goblin sweatTo earn his cream-bowl duly set,When in one night, ere glimpse of morn,His shadowy flail hath threshed the cornThat ten day-labourers could not end;Then lies him down the lubber fiend,And, stretched out all the chimney’s length,Basks at the fire his hairy strength;And crop-full out of doors he flings,Ere the first cock his matin rings.Thus done the tales, to bed they creep,By whispering winds soon lulled asleep.Towered cities please us thenAnd the busy hum of men,Where throngs of knights and barons bold,In weeds of peace, high triumphs hold,With store of ladies, whose bright eyesRain influence, and judge the prizeOf wit or arms, while both contendTo win her grace, whom all commend.There let Hymen oft appearIn saffron robe, with taper clear,And pomp, and feast, and revelry,With mask, and antique pageantry;Such sights as youthful poets dreamOn summer eves by haunted stream.Then to the well-trod stage anon,If Jonson’s learned sock be on,Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy’s child,Warble his native wood-notes wild.And ever against eating caresLap me in soft Lydian airsMarried to immortal verse,Such as the meeting soul may pierceIn notes, with many a winding boutOf linked sweetness long drawn out,With wanton heed and giddy cunning,The melting voice through mazes running,Untwisting all the chains that tieThe hidden soul of harmony;That Orpheus’ self may heave his headFrom golden slumber, on a bedOf heaped Elysian flowers, and hearSuch strains as would have won the earOf Pluto, to have quite set freeHis half-regained Eurydice.These delights if thou canst give,Mirth, with thee I mean to live.