Page images
PDF
EPUB

My plaining verfe as lively as before;

For fure fo well inftructed are my tears,
That they would fitly fall in order'd characters.

VIII.

Or fhould I thence hurried on viewlefs wing,
Take up a weeping on the mountains wild,
The gentle neighbourhood of grove and spring
Would foon unbosom all their echoes mild,
And I (for grief is easily beguil'd)

50

Might think th' infection of my forrows loud Had got a race of mourners on some pregnant cloud. This fubject the Author finding to be above the years he bad, when he wrote it, and nothing fatisfied with what was begun, left it unfinished.

"the fight thereof. And oh, that I could retaine the effects that "it wrought with an unfainting perfeverance! Who then did "dictate this hyme to my redeemer, &c." TRAVELS. p. 167. edit. 1627. The first is, 1615.

50. Hurried on viewless wing.] See Coм. v. 92. HURRIED is used here in an acceptation lefs familiar than at present. And in other places. PARAD. L. B. ii. 937. Of Satan's flight, -Some tumultuous cloud

Instinct with fire and vapour, HURRIED him
As many miles aloft.-

Again, ibid. 603. The fallen angels are to pine for ages in frost, "thence HURRIED back to fire." And, B. v. 778.

-All this hafte

Of midnight march, and HURRIED meeting here.

In all these paffages it is applied to preternatural motion, the movements of imaginary beings.

51. Take up a weeping on the mountains wild.] This expreffion is from JEREMIAH, ix. 10. "For the mountains will I TAKE UP A WEEPING and wailing, &c.".

66

53.Unbofom all their echoes mild.] In PARAD LOST, the flowers in the morning open their choiceft BOSOM'D fmells.” B. v. 127. Hoarded, locked up as in a treafury of choice things. Compare Coм. v. 368.

And the fweet peace that goodness BOOMS ever.

UPON

UPON THE CIRCUMCISION.

E flaming Pow'rs, and winged Warriors bright,

Y That erft with mufic, and triumphant fong,

First heard by happy watchful fhepherds ear,
So fweetly fung your joy the clouds along
Through the foft filence of the lift'ning night;
Now mourn, and if sad share with us to bear
Your fiery effence can diftil no tear,
Burn in your fighs, and borrow

Seas wept from our deep forrow:

He who with all heav'n's heraldry whilere

Enter'd the world, now bleeds to give us eafe;

1. PARAD. L. ix. 156.

Subjected to his service angel-wings,

And FLAMING minifters.

Again, xi. 101.

Take to thee from among the Cherubims
Thy choice of ELAMING warriors.--

See also, iv. 576. Of the angel Gabriel.

To whom the WINGED WARRIOR thus return'd.

And vi. 102. " Inclos'd with FLAMING cherubim."

7. Your fiery effence can diftil no tear,

[ocr errors]

10

Burn in your fighs.-] Milton is puzzled how to reconcile In the tranfcendent effence of angels with the infirmities of men. PARADISE LOST, having made the angel Gabriel share in a repaft of fruit with Adam, he finds himself under a neceffity of getting rid of an obvious objection, that material food does not belong to intellectual or ethereal substances: and to avoid certain circumstances, humiliating and difgraceful to the dignity of the angelic nature, the natural confequences of concoction and digef tion, he forms a new theory of tranfpiration, fuggested by the wonderful tranfmutations of chemistry. In the prefent intance, he wishes to make angels weep. But being of the effence of fire, they cannot produce water. At length he recollects, that fire may produce burning fighs. It is debated in Thomas Aquinas whether Angels have not, or may not have, beards.

"10. He

Alas, how foon our fin

Sore doth begin

His infancy to seize!

O more exceeding love, or law more just
Juft law indeed, but more exceeding love!
For we by rightful doom remedilefs

Were loft in death, till he that dwelt above
High thron'd in fecret blifs, for us frail duft

10. He who with all Heav'n's heraldry whilere

15

Enter'd the world.-] Great pomps and proceffions are proclaimed or preceded by heralds. It is the fame idea in PARAD. L. B. i. 752.

Meanwhile the WINGED HERALDS by command
Of fovran power,' with aweful ceremony,

And trumpets found, throughout the hoft proclaim
A folemn council, &c.-

Again, B. ii. 516.

Towards the four winds five speedy cherubims
Put to their mouths the founding alchemy

By HERALDS Voice proclaim'd.

Or HERALDRY may mean retinue, train, the proceffion itself. What he otherwife calls pomp. PARAD. L. B. viii. 564.

While the bright pomp afcended jubilant.

Again, B. v. 353.

More folemn than the tedious POMP which waits

On princes, &c.

So again, Eve goes forth, B. viii. 60.

Not unattended, for on her as queen

A POMP of winning graces waited still.

Her train of regal attendants were winning graces. It is the fame, and it is the true, fenfe of POMP, in L'ALLEGR. V. 127. With POMP, and feaft, and revelry.

But I believe Jonfon, affecting claffical phrafeology, made the word technical in Mafques. See Note on SAMS. AGON. 1. 132. 17. Remedilefs.] PARAD. L. ix. 919.

[ocr errors]

Submitting to what feem'd REMEDILESS.

Emptied

Emptied his glory, ev'n to nakedness;

And that great covenant which we still tranfgrefs
Entirely fatisfied,

And the full wrath befide

Of vengeful juftice bore for our excess,

And feals obedience firft, with wounding smart,
This day, but O ere long,

Huge pangs and strong

Will pierce more near his heart.*

ON THE DEATH OF A FAIR INFANT,

Ο

DYING OF A COUGH.+

I.

20

Faireft flow'r, no fooner blown but blafted, Soft filken primrose fading timelesly, Summer's chief honour, if thou hadst out-lafted Bleak Winter's force that made thy blossom dry; For he being amorous on that lovely dye 5

That did thy cheek envermeil, thought to kiss, But kill'd, alas, and then bewail'd his fatal blifs,

II.

For fince grim Aquilo his charioteer

By boisterous rape th' Athenian damfel got,
He thought it touch'd his deity full near,

[ocr errors]

*It is hard to fay, why these three odes on the three grand incidents or events of the life of Chrift, were not at first printed together. I believe they were all written about the year 1629.

+ Written in 1625, and first inserted in edition 1673. He was now seventeen.

5. For be being amorous on that lovely dye, &c.] In ROMEO AND JULIET, Affliction, and Death, turn paramours.

8. Boreas ravifhed Orithyia. Ovid. METAM. vi. 677.

VOL. I.

O o

If

If likewife he fome fair one wedded not,
Thereby to wipe away th' infamous blot

Of long-uncoupled bed, and childless eld, Which 'mongst the wanton Gods a foul reproach was held.

III.

So mounting up in icy-pearled car,

Through middle empire of the freezing air
He wander'd long, till thee he fpy'd from far;
There ended was his quest, there ceas'd his care:
Down he defcended from his fnow-foft chair,

15

20

But all unwares with his cold-kind embrace Unhous'd thy virgin foul from her fair biding place.

IV.

Yet art thou not inglorious in thy fate;
For fo Apollo, with unweeting hand,
Whilome did flay his dearly-loved mate,

15. So mounting up in icy-pearled car.] We fhould rather read ice-ypearled. And fo in the Mafk, rusb-yfringed, v. 890. Otherwife, we have two epithets instead of one, with a weaker fenfe. Milton himself affords an inftance in the Ode on THE NATIVITY, V. 155.

Yet first to thofe YCHAIN'D in fleep.

Of the prefixture of the augment y, in a concatenated epithet, there is an example in the Epitaph on Shakespeare, v. 4.

Under a STAR-YPOINTING pyramid.

23. For fo Apollo, with unweeting hand,

Whilome did flay his dearly-laved mate,

Young Hyacinth.--] From thefe lines one would fufpect, although it does not immediately follow, that a boy was the fubject of the Ode. The child is only called a fair infant in the edition 1673, where this piece firft appeared, although it was written in 1625. So alfo in Tonfon, 1705. Tickell's title is a Fair Infant, a NEPHEW of his, &c. This is adopted by Fenton. But in the last stanza the poet says expressly;

But thou, the mother of so sweet a child,
HER falfe-imagin'd lofs cease to lament,

Yet

« PreviousContinue »