MILTON'S

L'ALLEGRO AND IL PENSEROSO.

ILLUSTRATED WITH ETCHINGS ON STEEL,

BY BIRKET FOSTER.

LONDON:

DAVID BOGUE, 86, FLEET STREET.

MDCCCLV.

144 85,15,3

14414-29 A

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

ALLEGRO.

J. Portrait of Milton (from the Picture by Samuel Cooper)

TITLE.

This Portrait was formerly in the possession of Milton's daughter Deborah;
it then passed into the hands of Sir William Davenant, and subsequently
into those of Sir Joshua Reynolds.

11. Find out some uncouth cell,

Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings,
And the night raven sings.

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Jest, and youthful Jollity,

Sport that wrinkled Care derides,

And Laughter holding both his sides.

IV. To hear the lark begin his flight,
And, singing, startle the dull night,
From his watch-tower in the skies.

V. Then to come, in spite of sorrow,
And at my window bid good morrow,
Through the sweet-brier or the vine,
Or the twisted eglantine.

VI. Oft listening how the hounds and horn,
Cheerly rouse the slumbering morn.

VII. Some time walking, not unseen,
By hedgerow elms, on hillocks green.

VIII

While the ploughman, near at hand,
Whistles o'er the furrow'd land.

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IX

And the milkmaid singeth blythe,
And the mower whets his scythe,
And every shepherd tells his tale,
Under the hawthorn in the dale.

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X. Russet lawns, and fallows gray,
Where the nibbling flocks do stray.

XI. Mountains, on whose barren breast

The labouring clouds do often rest;
Meadows trim, with daisies pied,
Shallow brooks, and rivers wide.

XII. Towers and battlements it sees
Bosom'd high in tufted trees

XIII. Where, perhaps, some beauty lies,
The cynosure of neighbouring eyes

XIV.

Hard by, a cottage chimney smokes
From between two aged oaks,

Where Corydon and Thyrsis met,

Are at their savoury dinner set.

XV. And then in haste her bower she leaves,
With Thestylis to bind the sheaves.

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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

XV

And the jocund rebecks sound

To many a youth and many a maid
Dancing in the checker'd shade;

And young and old come forth to play
On a sunshine holyday.

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Then to the spicy nut-brown ale, XV With stories told of many a feat,

How fairy Mab the junkets eat.

XVII Where throngs of knights and barons bold,
In weeds of peace, high triumphs hold,
With store of ladies, whose bright eyes,
Rain influence, and judge the prize

Of wit or arms.

XXLap me in soft Lydian airs,

Married to immortal verse.

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AL PENSEROSO

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But hail, thou goddess sage and holy,

Hail, divinest Melancholy!

XX Thee, bright-hair'd Vesta, long of yore,
To solitary Saturn bore;

XX

Oft in glimmering bowers and glades
He met her.

And add to these retired Leisure,

That in trim gardens takes his pleasure.

XXII Thee, chantress, oft, the woods among,
I woo, to hear thy even-song.

XXIV

And, missing thee, I walk unseen,
On the dry smooth-shaven green,
To behold the wandering moon.

Oft on a plat of rising ground,
XXV
I hear the far-off curfew sound,
Over some wide water'd shore.

Or let my lamp, at midnight hour,
XXV Be seen in some high lonely tower,
Where I may oft outwatch the Bear.

Or usher'd with a shower still,
XXV When the gust hath blown his fill,
Ending on the rustling leaves,
With minute drops from off the eaves.

XXVII

And, when the sun begins to fling
His flaring beams, me, goddess, bring,
To arched walks of twilight groves.

But let my due feet never fail XXITO walk the studious cloisters' pale.

And may at last my weary age
XXX
Find out the peaceful hermitage,
The hairy gown and mossy cell.

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