L'ALLEGRO. Hence, loathed Melancholy, Of Cerberus and blackest midnight born In Stygian cave forlorn, 'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy! Find out some uncouth cell, Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings, And the night-raven sings; There under ebon shades, and low brow'd rocks As ragged as thy locks, In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell. But come, thou goddess fair and free, In heaven yclept Euphrosyne, Or whether (as some sager) sing1 The frolic wind, that breathes the spring, Zephyr with Aurora playing, As he met her once a Maying, There on beds of violets blue And fresh-blown roses wash'd in dew, So buxom, blithe and debonair. Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee Jest and youthful Jollity, Quips and Cranks, and wanton Wiles,2 Nods and Becks and wreathed Smiles Such as hang on Hebe's cheek, And love to live in dimple sleek; Come and trip it, as you go, And in thy right hand lead with thee To live with her, and live with thee, In unreproved pleasures free; And singing, startle the dull night, While the cock with lively din, From the side of some hoar hill, By hedge-row elms, on hillocks green, Right against the eastern gate Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures, Whilst the landskip round it measures; Russet lawns, and fallows gray, Where the nibbling flocks do stray; Of herbs, and other country messes, To the tann'd haycock in the mead. And the jocund rebecks sound Dancing in the chequer'd shade; And young and old come forth to play On a sunshine holy-day, 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 pinch'd, and pull'd, she said, And he, by friars' lantern led; Tells how the drudging Goblin sweat, Ere the first cock his matin rings. Where throngs of knights and barons bold, Of wit, or arms, while both contend In saffron robe, with taper clear; And ever against eating cares, Lap me in soft Lydian airs, Such as the meeting soul may pierce, With wanton heed and giddy cunning, The melting voice through mazes running, The hidden soul of harmony; That Orpheus' self may heave his head Of heap'd Elysian flowers and hear Mirth, with thee mean to live. Milton shows his early fondness for the Italian language, by taking from it the titles of these poems. L'Allegro is the mirthful (man), and Il Penseroso the melancholy (pensive rather, or thoughtful). These two poems are supposed, with good reason, to have been written at Horton in Buckinghamshire, where his parents were residing at the time of their composition. I mention this circumstance, first because it is pleasant to know when poetry is written in poetical places, and next for the sake of such readers as may happen to know the spot. 1" Some, sager, sing."-Ben Jonson, in one of his Masks. "Because," says Warburton, "those who give to Mirth such gross companions as Eating and Drinking, are the less sage mythologists." 2" Quips, and Cranks, and wanton Wiles."-What a Crank is, the commentators are puzzled to say. guess, from analogy with "winding turns" (which They |