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Of Hesperus, and his daughters three,
That sing about the golden tree :
Along the crispéd shades and bowers
Revels the spruce and jocund Spring,
The Graces, and the rosy-bosomed Hours,
Thither all their bounties bring:

There eternal Summer dwells,

And west winds, with musky wing,

About the cedarn alleys fling

Nard and cassia's balmy smells.

Iris there with humid bow

Waters the odorous banks, that blow

Flowers of more mingled hue

Than her purfled 52 scarf can shew,

And drenches with Elysian dew

(List, mortals, if your ears be true)

Beds of hyacinth and roses,

Where young Adonis oft reposes,

Waxing well of his deep wound

In slumber soft, and on the ground

Sadly sits the Assyrian queen;

53

But far above, in spangled sheen,

Celestial Cupid, her famed son, advanced,

Holds his dear Psyche sweet entranced,

NOTES.

NOTES.

Note1, page 3. Unmindful of the crown that Virtue gives.

The stress is upon this fact; for, though it may not be a fault in itself to

"Strive to keep up a frail and feverish being,"

yet it certainly is to strive to keep it up "unmindful," &c.-Newton.

P. 3. To lay their just hands on that golden key.

Of St. Peter. Cf. Lycidas, ver. 110.

3 P. 4. That, like to rich and various gems.

Cf. "Richard II." Act II. Sc. 1, where John of Gaunt speaks of England

as

"this little world,

This precious stone set in the silver sea.'

P. 6. Roving the Celtic and Iberian fields.]—i. e. France and Spain.

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5 P. 8. These my sky robes spun out of Iris' woof

Cf. Paradise Lost," xi. 244.

6 P. 10. Pacing toward the other goal.-See Ps. xix. 5.

7 P. 12. Dark-veiled Cotytto!

The goddess of immodesty, formerly worshipped at Athens with nocturnal rites.

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The margin of Milton's MS. gives "cell." See Newton.

9 P. 20. Scylla wept. See "Paradise Lost," ii. 260, 1019.

10 P. 24.

Swinkt.-Tired, from swink, to toil or labour.

11 P. 28. Bosky.Woody.

12 P. 29. That wont st.-Art accustomed.

13 P. 38. So dear to Heaven is saintly chastity.

Spenser, "Faerie Queene," iii. 8, 29:--

"See how the Heavens, of voluntary grace,

And sovereign favour towards chastity,

Do succour send to her distresséd case:

So much high God doth innocence embrace."-Thyer.

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