GLOOMY night embraced the place Where the noble infant lay;
The babe looked up and showed his face- In spite of darkness, it was day.
We saw thee in thy balmy nest, Bright dawn of our eternal day! We saw thine eyes break from the east, And chase the trembling shades away: We saw thee, and we blessed the sight, We saw thee by thine own sweet light.
She sings thy tears asleep, and dips Her kisses in thy weeping eye; She spreads the red leaves of thy lips, That in their buds yet blushing lie.
Yet when young April's husband-showers Shall bless the faithful Maia's bed, We'll bring the first-born of her flowers To kiss thy feet and crown thy head: To thee, dread Lamb! whose love must keep The shepherds, while they feed their sheep.
LADY, that in the prime of earliest youth
Wisely has shunned the broad way and the green,
And with those few art eminently seen, That labour up the hill with heavenly truth, The better part, with Mary and with Ruth, Chosen thou hast; and they that over ween, 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, 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.
HAIL, holy Light, offspring of Heaven, first-born, Or of the Eternal co-eternal beam,
May I express thee unblamed? since God is light, And never but in unapproached light
Dwelt from eternity, dwelt then in thee, Bright effluence of bright essence increate. Or hear'st thou rather, pure ethereal stream, Whose fountain who shall tell? Before the Sun, Before the Heavens thou wert, and at the voice Of God, as with a mantle, didst invest
The rising world of waters dark and deep, Won from the void and formless infinite.
Thee I revisit now with bolder wing,
Escaped the Stygian pool, though long detained In that obscure sojourn, while, in my flight,
Through utter and through middle darkness borne,
With other notes than to the Orphean lyre, I sung of Chaos and eternal Night;
Taught by the heavenly Muse to venture down The dark descent, and up to re-ascend, Though hard and rare: thee I revisit safe, And feel thy sovran vital lamp: but thou Revisit'st not these eyes, that roll in vain To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn; So thick a drop serene hath quenched their orbs, Or dim suffusion veiled. Yet not the more Cease I to wander, where the Muses haunt, Clear spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill, Smit with the love of sacred song; but chief Thee, Sion, and the flowery brooks beneath, That wash thy hallowed feet, and warbling flow, Nightly I visit: nor sometimes forget Those other two, equalled with me in fate So were I equalled with them in renown, Blind Thamyris, and blind Mæonides, And Tiresias, and Phineus, prophets old: Then feed on thoughts, that voluntary move Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful bird Sings darkling, and in shadiest covert hid, Tunes her nocturnal note. Thus with the year Seasons return; but not to me returns Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn, Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose, Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine; But cloud instead, and ever-during dark Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair Presented with a universal blank
Of Nature's works, to me expunged and razed,
And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out. So much the rather thou, celestial Light,
Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers Irradiate there plant eyes, all mist from thence Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell
Of things invisible to mortal sight.
CAN any mortal mixture of earth's mould Breathe such divine enchanting ravishment? Sure something holy lodges in that breast, And with these raptures moves the vocal air To testify his hidden residence.
How sweetly did they float upon the wings Of silence, through the empty-vaulted night, At every fall smoothing the raven-down
Of darkness, till it smiled! I have often heard My mother Circe with the Syrens three,
Amidst the flowery-kirtled Naiades,
Culling their potent herbs and baleful drugs; Who, as they sung, would take the prisoned soul And lap it in Elysium; Scylla wept,
And chid her barking waves into attention, And fell Charybdis murmured soft applause. Yet they in pleasing slumber lulled the sense, And in sweet madness robbed it of itself: But such a sacred and home-felt delight, Such sober certainty of waking bliss,
I never heard till now. I'll speak to her,
And she shall be my queen. Hail, foreign wonder!
Whom certain these rough shades did never breed, Unless the goddess that in rural shrine
Dwellest here with Pan, or Sylvan; by blest song Forbidding every bleak unkindly fog
To touch the prosperous growth of this tall wood.
SATAN'S SOLILOQUY IN SIGHT OF PARADISE.
O THOU, that, with surpassing glory crowned, Look'st from thy sole dominion, like the God Of this new world; at whose sight all the stars Hide their diminished heads, to thee I call, But with no friendly voice, and add thy name, O Sun! to tell thee how I hate thy beams, That bring to my remembrance from what state I fell; how glorious once above thy sphere, Till pride and worse ambition threw me down Warring in Heaven against Heaven's matchless king: Ah, wherefore! he deserved no such return From me, whom he created what I was In that bright eminence, and with his good Upbraided none; nor was his service hard. What could be less than to afford him praise, The easiest recompense, and pay him thanks, How due! yet all his good proved ill in me, And wrought but malice; lifted up so high I 'sdained subjection, and thought one step higher Would set me highest, and in a moment quit The debt immense of endless gratitude, So burthensome still paying, still to owe; Forgetful what from him I still received,
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