Milton: Minor Poems

Sabrina fair,

Listen where thou art sitting 860

Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave,

In twisted braids of lilies knitting

The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair;

Listen for dear honor’s sake,

Goddess of the silver lake, 865

Listen and save!

Listen, and appear to us,

In name of great Oceanus,

By the earth-shaking Neptune’s mace,

And Tethys’ grave majestic pace; 870

By hoary Nereus’ wrinkled look,

And the Carpathian wizard’s hook;

By scaly Triton’s winding shell,

And old soothsaying Glaucus’ spell;

By Leucothea’s lovely hands, 875

And her son that rules the strands;

By Thetis’ tinsel-slippered feet,

And the songs of Sirens sweet;

By dead Parthenope’s dear tomb,

And fair Ligea’s golden comb, 880

Wherewith she sits on diamond rocks

Sleeking her soft alluring locks;

By all the nymphs that nightly dance

Upon thy streams with wily glance;

Rise, rise, and heave thy rosy head 885

From thy coral-paven bed,

And bridle in thy headlong wave,

Till thou our summons answered have.

Listen and save!

By the rushy-fringed bank, 890

Where grow the willow and the osier dank,

My sliding chariot stays,

Thick set with agate, and the azurn sheen

Of turkis blue, and emerald green,

That in the channel strays: 895

Whilst from off the waters fleet

Thus I set my printless feet

O’er the cowslip’s velvet head,

That bends not as I tread.

Gentle swain, at thy request 900

I am here!

Spir. Goddess dear,

We implore thy powerful hand

To undo the charmed band

Of true virgin here distressed 905

Through the force and through the wile

Of unblessed enchanter vile.

Sabr. Shepherd, ’tis my office best

To help ensnared chastity.

Brightest Lady, look on me. 910

Thus I sprinkle on thy breast

Drops that from my fountain pure

I have kept of precious cure;

Thrice upon thy finger’s tip,

Thrice upon thy rubied lip: 915

Next this marble venomed seat,

Smeared with gums of glutinous heat,

I touch with chaste palms moist and cold.

Now the spell hath lost his hold,

And I must haste ere morning hour 920

To wait in Amphitrite’s bower.

Spir. Virgin, daughter of Locrine,

Sprung of old Anchises’ line,

May thy brimmed waves for this

Their full tribute never miss 925

From a thousand petty rills,

That tumble down the snowy hills:

Summer drouth or singed air

Never scorch thy tresses fair,

Nor wet October’s torrent flood 930

Thy molten crystal fill with mud;

May thy billows roll ashore

The beryl and the golden ore;

May thy lofty head be crowned

With many a tower and terrace round, 935

And here and there thy banks upon

With groves of myrrh and cinnamon.

Come, Lady; while Heaven lends us grace,

Let us fly this cursed place,

Lest the sorcerer us entice 940

With some other new device.

Not a waste or needless sound

Till we come to holier ground.

I shall be your faithful guide

Through this gloomy covert wide; 945

And not many furlongs thence

Is your Father’s residence,

Where this night are met in state

Many a friend to gratulate

His wished presence, and beside 950

All the swains that there abide

With jigs and rural dance resort.

We shall catch them at their sport,

And our sudden coming there

Will double all their mirth and cheer. 955

Come, let us haste; the stars grow high,

But Night sits monarch yet in the mid sky.

Spir. Back, shepherds, back! Enough your play

Till next sun-shine holiday.

Here be, without duck or nod, 960

Other trippings to be trod

Of lighter toes, and such court guise

As Mercury did first devise

With the mincing Dryades

On the lawns and on the leas. 965

Noble Lord and Lady bright,

I have brought ye new delight.

Here behold so goodly grown

Three fair branches of your own.

Heaven hath timely tried their youth, 970

Their faith, their patience, and their truth,

And sent them here through hard assays

With a crown of deathless praise,

To triumph in victorious dance

O’er sensual folly and intemperance. 975

Spir. To the ocean now I fly,

And those happy climes that lie

Where day never shuts his eye,

Up in the broad fields of the sky.

There I suck the liquid air, 980

All amidst the gardens fair

Of Hesperus, and his daughters three

That sing about the golden tree.

Along the crisped shades and bowers

Revels the spruce and jocund Spring; 985

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 990

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 scarf can shew, 995

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, 1000

In slumbers soft, and on the ground

Sadly sits the Assyrian queen.

But far above, in spangled sheen,

Celestial Cupid, her famed son, advanced

Holds his dear Psyche, sweet entranced 1005

After her wandering labors long,

Till free consent the gods among

Make her his eternal bride,

And from her fair unspotted side

Two blissful twins are to be born, 1010

Youth and Joy; so Jove hath sworn.

But now my task is smoothly done:

I can fly, or I can run

Quickly to the green earth’s end,

Where the bowed welkin slow doth bend, 1015

And from thence can soar as soon

To the corners of the moon.

Mortals, that would follow me,

Love Virtue; she alone is free.

She can teach ye how to climb 1020

Higher than the sphery chime;

Or, if Virtue feeble were,

Heaven itself would stoop to her.

Yet once more, O ye laurels, and once more,

Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere,

I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude,

And with forced fingers rude

Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year. 5

Bitter constraint and sad occasion dear

Compels me to disturb your season due;

For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime,

Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer.

Who would not sing for Lycidas? he knew 10

Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme.

He must not float upon his watery bier

Unwept, and welter to the parching wind,

Without the meed of some melodious tear.

Begin, then, Sisters of the sacred well 15

That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring;

Begin, and somewhat loudly sweep the string.

Hence with denial vain and coy excuse:

So may some gentle Muse

With lucky words favor my destined urn, 20

And as he passes turn,

And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud!

For we were nursed upon the self-same hill,

Fed the same flock, by fountain, shade, and rill;

Together both, ere the high lawns appeared 25

Under the opening eyelids of the Morn,

We drove a-field, and both together heard

What time the gray-fly winds her sultry horn,

Battening our flocks with the fresh dews of night,

Oft till the star that rose at evening bright 30

Toward heaven’s descent had sloped his westering wheel.

Meanwhile the rural ditties were not mute;

Tempered to the oaten flute

Rough Satyrs danced, and Fauns with cloven heel

From the glad sound would not be absent long; 35

And old Damœtas loved to hear our song.

But, oh! the heavy change, now thou art gone,

Now thou art gone and never must return!

Thee, Shepherd, thee the woods and desert caves,

With wild thyme and the gadding vine o’ergrown, 40

And all their echoes, mourn.

The willows, and the hazel copses green,

Shall now no more be seen

Fanning their joyous leaves to thy soft lays.

As killing as the canker to the rose, 45

Or taint-worm to the weanling herds that graze,

Or frost to flowers, that their gay wardrobe wear,

When first the white-thorn blows;

Such Lycidas, thy loss to shepherd’s ear.

Where were ye, Nymphs, when the remorseless deep 50

Closed o’er the head of your loved Lycidas?

For neither were ye playing on the steep

Where your old bards, the famous Druids, lie,

Nor on the shaggy top of Mona high,

Nor yet where Deva spreads her wizard stream. 55

Ay me! I fondly dream

“Had ye been there,” ... for what could that have done?

What could the Muse herself that Orpheus bore,

The Muse herself, for her enchanting son,

Whom universal nature did lament, 60

When, by the rout that made the hideous roar,

His gory visage down the stream was sent,

Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore?

Alas! what boots it with uncessant care

To tend the homely, slighted, shepherd’s trade, 65

And strictly meditate the thankless Muse?

Were it not better done, as others use,

To sport with Amaryllis in the shade,

Or with the tangles of Neæra’s hair?

Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise 70

(That last infirmity of noble mind)

To scorn delights and live laborious days;

But the fair guerdon when we hope to find,

And think to burst out into sudden blaze,

Comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears, 75

And slits the thin-spun life. “But not the praise,”

Phœbus replied, and touched my trembling ears:

“Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil,

Nor in the glistering foil

Set off to the world, nor in broad rumor lies, 80

But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes

And perfect witness of all-judging Jove;

As he pronounces lastly on each deed,

Of so much fame in heaven expect thy meed.”

O fountain Arethuse, and thou honored flood, 85

Smooth-sliding Mincius, crowned with vocal reeds,

That strain I heard was of a higher mood.

But now my oat proceeds,

And listens to the Herald of the Sea,

That came in Neptune’s plea. 90

He asked the waves, and asked the felon winds,

What hard mishap hath doomed this gentle swain?

And questioned every gust of rugged wings

That blows from off each beaked promontory.

They knew not of his story; 95

And sage Hippotades their answer brings,

That not a blast was from his dungeon strayed:

The air was calm, and on the level brine

Sleek Panope with all her sisters played.

It was that fatal and perfidious bark, 100

Built in the eclipse, and rigged with curses dark,

That sunk so low that sacred head of thine.

Next, Camus, reverend sire, went footing slow,

His mantle hairy, and his bonnet sedge,

Inwrought with figures dim, and on the edge 105

Like to that sanguine flower inscribed with woe.

“Ah! who hath reft,” quoth he, “my dearest pledge?”

Last came, and last did go,

The Pilot of the Galilean Lake;

Two massy keys he bore of metals twain 110

(The golden opes, the iron shuts amain).

He shook his mitred locks, and stern bespake:—

“How well could I have spared for thee, young swain,

Enow of such as, for their bellies’ sake,

Creep, and intrude, and climb into the fold! 115

Of other care they little reckoning make

Than how to scramble at the shearers’ feast,

And shove away the worthy bidden guest.

Blind mouths! that scarce themselves know how to hold

A sheep-hook, or have learnt aught else the least 120

That to the faithful herdman’s art belongs!

What recks it them? What need they? They are sped;

And, when they list, their lean and flashy songs

Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw;

The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed, 125

But swoln with wind and the rank mist they draw,

Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread;

Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw

Daily devours apace, and nothing said.

But that two-handed engine at the door 130

Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more.”

Return, Alpheus; the dread voice is past

That shrunk thy streams; return, Sicilian Muse,

And call the vales, and bid them hither cast

Their bells and flowerets of a thousand hues. 135

Ye valleys low, where the mild whispers use

Of shades, and wanton winds, and gushing brooks,

On whose fresh lap the swart star sparely looks,

Throw hither all your quaint enamelled eyes,

That on the green turf suck the honeyed showers, 140

And purple all the ground with vernal flowers.

Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies,

The tufted crow-toe, and pale jessamine,

The white pink, and the pansy freaked with jet,

The glowing violet, 145

The musk-rose, and the well-attired woodbine,

With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head,

And every flower that sad embroidery wears;

Bid amaranthus all his beauty shed,

And daffadillies fill their cups with tears, 150

To strew the laureate hearse where Lycid lies.

For so, to interpose a little ease,

Let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise.

Ay me! whilst thee the shores and sounding seas

Wash far away, where’er thy bones are hurled; 155

Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides,

Where thou perhaps under the whelming tide

Visit’st the bottom of the monstrous world;

Or whether thou, to our moist vows denied,

Sleep’st by the fable of Bellerus old, 160

Where the great Vision of the guarded mount

Looks toward Namancos and Bayona’s hold.

Look homeward, Angel, now, and melt with ruth:

And, O ye dolphins, waft the hapless youth.

Weep no more, woeful shepherds, weep no more, 165

For Lycidas, your sorrow, is not dead,

Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor.

So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed,

And yet anon repairs his drooping head,

And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore 170

Flames in the forehead of the morning sky:

So Lycidas sunk low, but mounted high,

Through the dear might of Him that walked the waves,

Where, other groves and other streams along,

With nectar pure his oozy locks he laves, 175

And hears the unexpressive nuptial song,

In the blest kingdoms meek of joy and love.

There entertain him all the Saints above,

In solemn troops, and sweet societies,

That sing, and singing in their glory move, 180

And wipe the tears forever from his eyes.

Now, Lycidas, the shepherds weep no more;

Henceforth thou art the Genius of the shore,

In thy large recompense, and shalt be good

To all that wander in that perilous flood. 185

Thus sang the uncouth swain to the oaks and rills,

While the still morn went out with sandals gray:

He touched the tender stops of various quills,

With eager thought warbling his Doric lay:

And now the sun had stretched out all the hills, 190

And now was dropt into the western bay.

At last he rose, and twitched his mantle blue;

To-morrow to fresh woods, and pastures new.

O Nightingale that on yon bloomy spray

Warblest at eve, when all the woods are still,

Thou with fresh hope the lover’s heart dost fill,

While the jolly Hours lead on propitious May.

Thy liquid notes that close the eye of day, 5

First heard before the shallow cuckoo’s bill,

Portend success in love. O, if Jove’s will

Have linked that amorous power to thy soft lay,

Now timely sing, ere the rude bird of hate

Foretell my hopeless doom, in some grove nigh; 10

As thou from year to year hast sung too late

For my relief, yet hadst no reason why.

Whether the Muse or Love called thee his mate,

Both them I serve, and of their train am I.

How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth,

Stolen on his wing my three-and-twentieth year!

My hasting days fly on with full career,

But my late spring no bud or blossom shew’th.

Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth 5

That I to manhood am arrived so near;

And inward ripeness doth much less appear,

That some more timely-happy spirits endu’th.

Yet, be it less or more, or soon or slow,

It shall be still in strictest measure even 10

To that same lot, however mean or high,

Toward which Time leads me, and the will of Heaven.

All is, if I have grace to use it so,

As ever in my great Task-Master’s eye.

Captain or Colonel, or Knight in Arms,

Whose chance on these defenceless doors may seize,

If deed of honor did thee ever please,

Guard them, and him within protect from harms.

He can requite thee; for he knows the charms 5

That call fame on such gentle acts as these,

And he can spread thy name o’er lands and seas,

Whatever clime the sun’s bright circle warms.

Lift not thy spear against the Muses’ bower:

The great Emathian conqueror bid spare 10

The house of Pindarus, when temple and tower

Went to the ground; and the repeated air

Of sad Electra’s poet had the power

To save the Athenian walls from ruin bare.

Lady, that in the prime of earliest youth

Wisely hast shunned the broad way and the green,

And with those few art eminently seen

That labor up the hill of heavenly Truth,

The better part with Mary and with Ruth 5

Chosen thou hast; and they that overween,

And at thy growing virtues fret their spleen,

No anger find in thee, but pity and ruth.

Thy care is fixed, and zealously attends

To fill thy odorous lamp with deeds of light, 10

And hope that reaps not shame. Therefore be sure

Thou, when the Bridegroom with his feastful friends

Passes to bliss at the mid-hour of night,

Hast gained thy entrance, Virgin wise, and pure.

Daughter to that good Earl, once President

Of England’s Council and her Treasury,

Who lived in both unstained with gold or fee,

And left them both, more in himself content,

Till the sad breaking of that Parliament 5

Broke him, as that dishonest victory

At Chæronea, fatal to liberty,

Killed with report that old man eloquent,

Though later born than to have known the days

Wherein your father flourished, yet by you, 10

Madam, methinks I see him living yet:

So well your words his noble virtues praise

That all both judge you to relate them true

And to possess them, honored Margaret.

Harry, whose tuneful and well-measured song

First taught our English music how to span

Words with just note and accent, not to scan

With Midas’ ears, committing short and long,

Thy worth and skill exempts thee from the throng, 5

With praise enough for Envy to look wan;

To after age thou shalt be writ the man

That with smooth air couldst humor best our tongue.

Thou honor’st Verse, and Verse must send her wing

To honor thee, the priest of Phœbus’ quire, 10

That tunest their happiest lines in hymn or story.

Dante shall give Fame leave to set thee higher

Than his Casella, whom he wooed to sing,

Met in the milder shades of Purgatory.

Fairfax, whose name in arms through Europe rings,

Filling each mouth with envy or with praise,

And all her jealous monarchs with amaze,

And rumors loud that daunt remotest kings,

Thy firm unshaken virtue ever brings 5

Victory home, though new rebellions raise

Their Hydra heads, and the false North displays

Her broken league to imp their serpent wings.

O yet a nobler task awaits thy hand

(For what can war but endless war still breed?) 10

Till truth and right from violence be freed,

And public faith cleared from the shameful brand

Of public fraud. In vain doth Valor bleed,

While Avarice and Rapine share the land.