MILTON.

ON TIME.

Written at Cambridge about 1630.

FLY,

LY, 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,

With an individual kiss;

And joy shall overtake us as a flood,

When everything that is sincerely good

And perfectly divine,

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 climb,

Then, all this earthly grossness quit,

Attired with stars we shall for ever sit,

Triumphing over death, and chance, and thee, O time!

MILTON.

AT A SOLEMN MUSIC.

Written at Cambridge about 1630.

BLEST pair of sirens, pledges of heaven's joy,

Sphere-born, harmonious sisters, Voice and Verse,
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 content,

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 music 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.

Oh, 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!

COWLEY.

THE PRAISE OF PINDAR.

Written in Paris, about 1645, during the Royalist exile, and first printed in the volume of 1656.

I.

INDAR is imitable by none;

PINT

The Phoenix Pindar is a vast species alone,

Whoe'er but Daedalus with waxen wings could fly
And neither sink too low, nor soar too high?

What could he who followed claim,
But of vain boldness the unhappy fame,

And by his fall a sea to name?

Pindar's unnavigable song

Like a swoln flood from some steep mountain pours along ; The ocean meets with such a voice

From his enlarged mouth, as drowns the ocean's noise.

II.

So Pindar does new words and figures roll
Down his impetuous dithyrambic tide,

Which in no channel deigns to abide,

Which neither banks nor dykes control;