And, if I give thee honour due,
Mirth, admit me of thy crue
To live with her, and live with thee,
In unreproved pleasures free :
To hear the lark begin his flight,
And singing startle the dull Night
From his watch-towre in the skies,
Till the dappled Dawn doth rise,
Then to com in spight of sorrow,
And at my window bid good morrow
Through the sweetbriar, or the vine,
Or the twisted eglantine,
While the cock with lively din
Scatters the rear of Darknes thin,
And to the stack, or the barn dore,
Stoutly struts his dames before;
Oft list'ning how the hounds and horn
Chearly rouse the slumbring Morn
From the side of som hoar hill,
As thick and numberless
As the gay motes that people the sun beams,
Or likest hovering dreams,
The fickle pensioners of Morpheus train. But hail! thou Goddes sage and holy! Hail! divinest Melancholy!
Whose saintly visage is too bright
To hit the sense of human sight,
And therefore to our weaker view
Ore laid with black, staid Wisdoms hue-
Black, but such as in esteem
Prince Memnons sister might beseem,
Or that starr'd Ethiope queen that strove
To set her beauties praise above
The sea nymphs, and their powers offended;
Yet thou art higher far descended ;'
Thee bright-haired Vesta long of yore
To solitary Saturn bore,
His daughter she (in Saturn's raign
Such mixture was not held a stain);
Oft in glimmering bowres and glades
He met her, and in secret shades
Of woody Ida's inmost grove,
And of those dæmons that are found
In fire, air, flood, or under ground,
Whose power hath a true consent
With planet, or with element.
Som time let gorgeous Tragedy
In scepter'd pall com sweeping by,
Presenting Thebs or Pelops line
Or the tale of Troy divine,
Or what (though rare) of later age
Ennobled hath the buskind stage.
But, O sad Virgin, that thy power
Might raise Musæus from his bower,
Or bid the soul of Orpheus sing
Such notes as warbled to the string
Drew iron tears down Pluto's cheek,
And made Hell grant what Love did seek.
Or call up him that left half told
The story of Cambuscan bold,
Of Camball and of Algarsife,
And who had Canace to wife,
That own'd the vertuous ring and glass,
And of the wondrous hors of brass
On which the Tartar king did ride }
And if ought els great bards beside
In sage and solemn tunes have sung,
Of turneys and of trophies hung,
Where the rude ax with heaved stroke
Was never heard the nymphs to daunt,
Or fright them from their hallow'd haunt
There in close covert by som brook,
profaner eye may look,
Hide me from Day's garish eie,
While the bee with honied thie,
That at her flowry work doth sing,
And the waters murmuring,
With such consort as they keep,
Entice the dewy-feather'd sleep;
And let som strange mysterious dream
Wave at his wings in airy stream
Of lively portrature display'd,
Softly on my eyelids laid;
And, as I wake, sweet musick breathe
Above, about, or underneath,
Sent by
som spirit to mortals good,
Or th' unseen Genius of the wood.
But let my
To walk the studious cloysters pale,
And love the high embowed roof,
With antick pillars massy proof,
And storied windows richly dight
Casting a dimm religious light.
There let the pealing organ blow
To the full voic'd quire below
In service high and anthems cleer,
As may with sweetnes, through mine ear,
Dissolve me into extasies,
And bring all Heav'n before mine eyes.
Find out the peacefull hermitage,
may at last my weary age
The hairy gown and mossy cell,
Of every star that Heav'n doth shew
And every herb that sips the dew;
Till old Experience do attain
To somthing like prophetic strain.
Pleasures, Melancholy, give,
with thee will choose to live.
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