To stand 'twixt us and our deserved smart?

But thou canst best perform that office where thou art. 70

XI.

Then thou, the mother of so sweet a child,
Her false-imagined loss cease to lament,
And wisely learn to curb thy sorrows wild:
Think what a present thou to God hast sent,
And render him with patience what he lent.
This, if thou do, he will an offspring give,
That, till the world's last end, shall make thy name to live.

ON TIME.*

FLY, envious Time, till thou run out thy race;
Call on the lazy leaden-stepping hours,
Whose speed is but the heavy plummet's pace;
And glut thyself with what thy womb devours,
Which is no more than what is false and vain,
And merely mortal dross;

So little is our loss,

So little is thy gain!

For when as each thing bad thou hast entomb'd,
And last of all thy greedy self consumed,

Then long Eternity shall greet our bliss

75

With an individual kiss;

And perfectly divine,

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With Truth, and Peace, and Love, shall ever shine

About the supreme throne

Of him, to whose happy-making sight alone

When once our heavenly-guided soul shall clime;
Then, all this earthy grossness quit,

Attired with stars, we shall for ever sit,

Triumphing over Death, and Chance, and thee, O Time.

AT A SOLEMN MUSICK.†

BLEST pair of Sirens, pledges of Heaven's joy;
Sphere-born harmonious sisters, Voice and Verse;

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*In Milton's manuscript, written with his own hand, the title is,-"On Time. To be set on a clock-case."

The "Ode at a Solemn Musick" is a short prelude to the strain of genius which produced "Paradise Lost." Warton says, that perhaps there are no finer lines in Milton than one long passage which he cites, (17-24.) I must say that this is going a little too far. That they are very fine I admit; but the sublime philosophy, to which he alludes as their prototype, must not be put in comparison with the fountains of "Paralise Lost." So far they are exceedingly curious, that they show how early the poet had constructed in his own mind the language of his divine imagery, and how rich and vigorous his style was, almost in his boyhood.—BRYDGES.

12. Individual: Eternal, inseparable.

14. Sincerely: Purely, perfectly.

Wed your divine sounds, and mix'd power employ
Dead things with inbreathed sense able to pierce;
And to our high-raised phantasy present
That undisturbed song of pure concent,
Aye sung before the sapphire-colour'd throne
To him that sits thereon,

With saintly shout, and solemn jubilee;
Where the bright Seraphim, in burning row,
Their loud uplifted angel trumpets blow;
And the cherubic host, in thousand quires,
Touch their immortal harps of golden wires,

With those just spirits that wear victorious palms,
Hymns devout and holy psalms

Singing everlastingly:

That we on earth, with undiscording voice,

May rightly answer that melodious noise;
As once we did, till disproportion'd sin

Jarr'd against Nature's chime, and with harsh din
Broke the fair musick that all creatures made

To their great Lord, whose love their motion sway'd
In perfect diapason, whilst they stood

In first obedience, and their state of good.
O, may we soon again renew that song,

And keep in tune with Heaven, till God ere long
To his celestial consort us unite,

To live with him, and sing in endless morn of light!

AN EPITAPH ON THE MARCHIONESS OF
WINCHESTER.*

THIS rich marble doth inter
The honour'd wife of Winchester,

A viscount's daughter, an earl's heir,
Besides what her virtues fair

Added to her noble birth,

More than she could own from earth.
Summers three times eight save one
She had told; alas! too soon,

After so short time of breath,

To house with darkness and with death.

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In Howell's entertaining Letters, there is one to this lady,-the Lady Jane Savage, Marchioness of Winchester,-dated March 15, 1626. He says, he assisted her in learning Spanish; and that Nature and the Graces exhausted all their treasure and skill in "framing this exact model of female perfection."

Yet had the number of her days
Been as complete as was her praise,
Nature and Fate had had no strife
In giving limit to her life.

Her high birth, and her graces sweet,
Quickly found a lover meet;

The virgin quire for her request
The god that sits at marriage feast:
He at their invoking came,

But with a scarce well-lighted flame;
And in his garland, as he stood,
Ye might discern a cypress bud.
Once had the early matrons run
To greet her of a lovely son;

And now with second hope she goes,
And calls Lucina to her throes:
But, whether by mischance or blame,
Atropos for Lucina came;
And with remorseless cruelty
Spoil'd at once both fruit and tree:
The hapless babe, before his birth,
Had burial, yet not laid in earth;
And the languish'd mother's womb
Was not long a living tomb.

So have I seen some tender slip,
Sav'd with care from winter's nip,
The pride of her carnation train,
Pluck'd up by some unheedy swain,
Who only thought to crop the flower
New shot up from vernal shower;
But the fair blossom hangs the head
Sideways, as on a dying bed;
And those pearls of dew she wears
Prove to be presaging tears,
Which the sad morn had let fall
On her hastening funeral.

Gentle lady, may thy grave

Peace and quiet ever have;
After this thy travel sore

Sweet rest seize thee evermore,

That, to give the world increase,
Shorten'd hast thy own life's lease.
Here, besides the sorrowing
That thy noble house doth bring,
Here be tears of perfect moan
Wept for thee in Helicon;
And some flowers, and some bays,
For thy herse, to strow the ways,

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99. Cupress bud: An emblem of a funeral, called by Horace funebris, and by Spenser the cypress fumera" 28. Atropes, the fate who presided over death,

Sent thee from the banks of Came,

Devoted to thy virtuous name;

Whilst thou, bright saint, high sit'st in glory,

Next her, much like to thee in story,

That fair Syrian shepherdess,

Who, after years of barrenness,
The highly-favour'd Joseph bore
To him that served for her before;

And at her next birth, much like thee,
Through pangs fled to felicity,
Far within the bosom bright
Of blazing Majesty and Light:
There with thee, new welcome Saint,
Like fortunes may her soul acquaint,
With thee there clad in radiant sheen,
No Marchioness, but now a Queen.

SONG ON MAY MORNING.*

Now the bright morning-star, day's harbinger,
Comes dancing from the east, and leads with her
The flowery May, who from her green lap throws
The yellow cowslip and the pale primrose.

Hail, bounteous May, that dost inspire
Mirth, and youth, and warm desire;
Woods and groves are of thy dressing;
Hill and dale doth boast thy blessing!
Thus we salute thee with our early song,
And welcome thee, and wish thee long.

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* This beautiful little song presents an eminent proof of Milton's attention to the effect of metre, in that admirable change of numbers with which he describes the appearance of the May Morning, and salutes her after she has appeared; as different as the subject is, and produced by the transition from iambics to trochaics. So in "L'Allegro," he banishes Melancholy in iambics, but invites Euphrosyne and her attendants in trochaics.-TODD.

59. Banks of Came: The Camus anglicised. See "Lycidas," 103. "I have been told that there was a Cambridge-collection of verses on her death, among which Milton's elegiack ode first appeared."-T. WARTON.

63. Syrian shepherdess: Rachel. Gen. XXX. 22, 23.

68. Through pangs, &c. We cannot too much admire the beauty of this line: I wish it had closed the poem, which it would have done with singular effect. What follows serves only to weaken it, and the last verse is an eminent instance of the bathos.-DUNSTER.

MISCELLANIES.

ANNO ÆTATIS XIX.

At a VACATION EXERCISE in the College, part Latin, part English.
The Latin speeches ended, the English thus began:-
HAIL, native Language, that by sinews weak
Didst move my first endeavouring tongue to speak;
And mad'st imperfect words with childish trips,
Half unpronounced, slide through my infant lips;
Driving dumb Silence from the portal door,
Where he had mutely sat two years before!
Here I salute thee, and thy pardon ask,
That now I use thee in my latter task:

Small loss it is that thence can come unto thee;
I know my tongue but little grace can do thee:
Thou need'st not be ambitious to be first;
Believe me, I have thither pack'd the worst:
And, if it happen as I did forecast,
The daintiest dishes shall be served up last.
I pray thee, then, deny me not thy aid
For this same small neglect that I have made:
But haste thee straight to do me once a pleasure,
And from thy wardrobe bring thy chiefest treasure;
Not those new-fangled toys, and trimming slight,
Which takes our late fantasticks with delight;
But cull those richest robes, and gay'st attire,
Which deepest spirits and choicest wits desire.

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* Written in 1627. The "Verses at a Vacation Exercise in College," are full of ingenuity and imagery, and have several fine passages; but, though they blame "new-fangled toys" with a noble disdain, they are themselves in many parts too fantastic.-BRYDGES.

19. Not those new-fangled toys, &c. Perhaps he here alludes to Lilly's "Euphues," a book full of affected phraseology, which pretended to reform or refine the English language. The ladies and the courtiers were all instructed in this new style, and it was esteemed a mark of ignorance or unpoliteness not to understand Euphuism.

21. But cull, &c. From a youth of nineteen these are striking expressions of a consciousness of superior genius, and of an ambition to rise above the level of the fashionable rhymers. At so early an age