February 24 The Harvard Classics, fifteen minutes a day
Lights and Shadows of Milton
In a superb poem, Milton bids Loathed Melancholy begone to some dark cell. He calls for the joys of youth and vows eternal faith with them.
- John Milton marries his third wife, Elizabeth Marshall, Feb. 24, 1662.
From the 1930 Reading Guide
Poems
John Milton
POEMS WRITTEN AT HORTON
1632–1638
L’ALLEGRO
(1633)
HENCE, loathèd Melancholy,Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born,In Stygian cave forlorn’Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy,Find out some uncouth cell,Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings,And the night-raven sings;There under ebon shades, and low-browed rocks,As ragged as thy locks,In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell.But come, thou Goddess fair and free,In heaven yclep’d Euphrosyne,And by men, heart-easing Mirth,Whom lovely Venus at a birthWith two sister Graces moreTo ivy-crownèd Bacchus bore;Or whether (as some sager sing)The frolic Wind that breathes the spring,Zephyr with Aurora playing,As he met her once a-Maying,There on beds of violets blue,And fresh-blown roses washed in dew,Filled her with thee, a daughter fair,So buxom, blithe and debonair.Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with theeJest and youthful Jollity,Quips, and Cranks, and wanton Wiles,Nods, and Becks, and wreathèd Smiles,Such as hang on Hebe’s cheek,And love to live in dimple sleek;Sport that wrinkled Care derides,And Laughter holding both his sides.Come, and trip it as ye go,On the light fantastic toe;And in thy right hand lead with theeThe mountain Nymph, sweet Liberty;And, if I give thee honour due,Mirth, admit me of thy crew,To live with her, and live with thee,In unreprovèd pleasures free;To hear the lark begin his flight,And singing startle the dull night,From his watch-tower in the skies,Till the dappled Dawn doth rise;Then to come, in spite of sorrow,And at my window bid good-morrow,Through the sweet-briar or the vine,Or the twisted eglantine;While the cock with lively dinScatters the rear of Darkness thin;And to the stack, or the barn-door,Stoutly struts his dames before:Oft listening how the hounds and hornCheerly rouse the slumbering Morn,From the side of some hoar hill,Through the high wood echoing shrill:Sometime walking, not unseen,By hedgerow elms, on hillocks green,Right against the eastern gate,Where the great Sun begins his state,Robed in flames and amber light,The clouds in thousand liveries dight;While the ploughman, near at hand,Whistles o’er the furrowed land,And the milkmaid singeth blithe,And the mower whets his scythe,And every shepherd tells his taleUnder the hawthorn in the dale.Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures,Whilst the lantskip round it measures:Russet lawns, and fallows gray,Where the nibbling flocks do stray;Mountains on whose barren breastThe labouring clouds do often rest;Meadows trim with daisies pied;Shallow brooks, and rivers wide.Towers and battlements it seesBosomed high in tufted trees,Where perhaps some Beauty lies,The Cynosure of neighbouring eyes.Hard by, a cottage chimney smokesFrom betwixt two aged oaks,Where Corydon and Thyrsis metAre at their savoury dinner setOf hearbs and other country messes,Which the neat-handed Phillis dresses;And then in haste her bower she leaves,With Thestylis to bind the sheaves;Or, if the earlier season lead,To the tanned haycock in the mead.Sometimes with secure delightThe upland hamlets will invite,When the merry bells ring round,And the jocond rebecks soundTo many a youth and many a maidDancing in the chequered shade;And young and old come forth to playOn a sunshine holyday,Till the livelong daylight fail:Then to the spicy nut-brown ale,With stories told of many a feat,How fairy Mab the junkets eat:She was pinched and pulled, she said;And he, by Friar’s lanthorn led,Tells how the drudging Goblin sweatTo earn his cream-bowl duly set,When in one night, ere glimpse of morn,His shadowy flail hath threshed the cornThat ten day-labourers could not end;Then lies him down, the lubber fiend,And, stretched out all the chimney’s length,Basks at the fire his hairy strength,And crop-full out of doors he flings,Ere the first cock his matin rings.Thus done the tales, to bed they creep,By whispering winds soon lulled asleep.Towered cities please us then,And the busy hum of men,Where throngs of Knights and Barons bold,In weeds of peace, high triumphs hold,With store of Ladies, whose bright eyesRain influence, and judge the prizeOf wit or arms, while both contendTo win her grace whom all commend.There let Hymen oft appearIn saffron robe, with taper clear,And pomp, and feast, and revelry,With mask and antique pageantry;Such sights as youthful Poets dreamOn summer eves by haunted stream.Then to the well-trod stage anon,If Jonson’s learned sock be on,Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy’s child,Warble his native wood-notes wild.And ever, against eating cares,Lap me in soft Lydian airs,Married to immortal verse,Such as the meeting soul may pierce,In notes with many a winding boutOf linkèd sweetness long drawn outWith wanton heed and giddy cunning,The melting voice through mazes running,Untwisting all the chains that tieThe hidden soul of harmony;That Orpheus’ self may heave his headFrom golden slumber on a bedOf heaped Elysian flowers, and hearSuch strains as would have won the earOf Pluto to have quite set freeHis half-regained Eurydice.These delights if thou canst give,Mirth, with thee I mean to live.
IL PENSEROSO
(1633)
HENCE, vain deluding Joys,The brood of Folly without father bred!How little you bested,Or fill the fixèd mind with all your toys!Dwell in some idle brain,And fancies fond with gaudy shapes possess,As thick and numberlessAs the gay motes that people the sunbeams,Or likest hovering dreams,The fickle pensioners of Morpheus’ train.But hail! thou Goddess sage and holy!Hail, divinest Melancholy!Whose saintly visage is too brightTo hit the sense of human sight,And therefore to our weaker viewO’erlaid with black, staid Wisdom’s hue;Black, but such as in esteemPrince Memnon’s sister might beseem,Or that starred Ethiop Queen that stroveTo set her beauty’s praise aboveThe Sea-Nymphs, and their powers offended.Yet thou art higher far descended:Thee bright-haired Vesta long of yoreTo solitary Saturn bore;His daughter she; in Saturn’s reignSuch mixture was not held a stain.Oft in glimmering bowers and gladesHe met her, and in secret shadesOf woody Ida’s inmost grove,Whilst yet there was no fear of Jove.Come, pensive Nun, devout and pure,Sober, steadfast, and demure,All in a robe of darkest grain,Flowing with majestic train,And sable stole of cypress lawnOver thy decent shoulders drawn.Come; but keep thy wonted state,With even step, and musing gait,And looks commercing with the skies,Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes:There, held in holy passion still,Forget thyself to marble, tillWith a sad leaden downward castThou fix them on the earth as fast.And join with thee calm Peace and Quiet,Spare Fast, that oft with gods doth diet,And hears the Muses in a ringAye round about Jove’s altar sing;And add to these retirèd Leisure,That in trim gardens takes his pleasure;But, first and chieftest, with thee bringHim that yon soars on golden wing,Guiding the fiery-wheelèd throne,The Cherub Contemplation;And the mute Silence hist along,’Less Philomel will deign a song,In her sweetest saddest plight,Smoothing the rugged brow of Night,While Cynthia checks her dragon yokeGently o’er the accustomed oak.Sweet bird, that shunn’st the noise of folly,Most musical, most melancholy!Thee, Chauntress, oft the woods amongI woo, to hear thy even-song;And, missing thee, I walk unseenOn the dry smooth-shaven green,To behold the wandering Moon,Riding near her highest noon,Like one that had been led astrayThrough the heaven’s wide pathless way,And oft, as if her head she bowed,Stooping through a fleecy cloud.Oft, on a plat of rising ground,I hear the far-off curfew sound,Over some wide-watered shore,Swinging slow with sullen roar;Or, if the air will not permit,Some still removèd place will fit,Where glowing embers through the roomTeach light to counterfeit a gloom,Far from all resort of mirth,Save the cricket on the hearth,Or the Bellman’s drowsy charmTo bless the doors from nightly harm.Or let my lamp, at midnight hour,Be seen in some high lonely tower,Where I may oft outwatch the Bear,With thrice-great Hermes, or unsphereThe spirit of Plato, to unfoldWhat worlds or what vast regions holdThe immortal mind that hath forsookHer mansion in this fleshly nook;And of those Daemons that are foundIn fire, air, flood, or underground,Whose power hath a true consentWith planet or with element.Sometime let gorgeous TragedyIn sceptred pall come sweeping by,Presenting Thebs, or Pelops’ line,Or the tale of Troy divine,Or what (though rare) of later ageEnnobled hath the buskined stage.But, O sad Virgin! that thy powerMight raise Musaeus from his bower;Or bid the soul of Orpheus singSuch 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-toldThe story of Cambuscan bold,Of Camball, and of Algarsife,And who had Canace to wife,That owned the virtuous ring and glass,And of the wondrous horse of brassOn which the Tartar King did ride;And if aught else great Bards besideIn sage and solemn tunes have sung,Of turneys, and of trophies hung,Of forests, and inchantments drear,Where more is meant than meets the ear.Thus, Night, oft see me in thy pale career,Till civil-suited Morn appear,Not tricked and frounced, as she wontWith the Attic boy to hunt,But kerchieft in a comely cloud,While rocking winds are piping loud,Or ushered with a shower still,When the gust hath blown his fill,Ending on the rustling leaves,With minute drops from off the eaves.And, when the sun begins to flingHis flaring beams, me, Goddess, bringTo archèd walks of twilight groves,And shadows brown, that Sylvan loves,Of pine, or monumental oak,Where the rude axe with heavèd strokeWas never heard the Nymphs to daunt,Or fright them from their hallowed haunt.There, in close covert, by some brook,Where no profaner eye may look,Hide me from Day’s garish eye,While the bee with honeyed thigh,That at her flowery work doth sing,And the waters murmuring,With such consort as they keep,Entice the dewy-feathered Sleep.And let some strange mysterious dream,Wave at his wings in airy stream,Of lively portraiture displayed,Softly on my eyelids laid.And as I wake, sweet music breatheAbove, about, or underneath,Sent by some Spirit to mortals good,Or the unseen Genius of the wood.But let my due feet never failTo walk the studious cloister’s pale,And love the high embowèd roof,With antick pillars massy proof,And storied windows richly dight,Casting a dim religious light.There let the pealing organ blow,To the full voiced Quire below,In service high and anthems clear,As may with sweetness, through mine ear,Dissolve me into ecstasies,And bring all Heaven before mine eyes.And may at last my weary ageFind out the peaceful hermitage,The hairy gown and mossy cell,Where I may sit and rightly spell,Of every star that Heaven doth shew,And every hearb that sips the dew;Till old experience do attainTo something like prophetic strain.These pleasures, Melancholy, give,And I with thee will choose to live.
The poem that begins at “SONNET TO THE NIGHTINGALE” low on page 38 runs on past the assigned pages; the reading stops before it.
Volume 4, pages 30–38 · See the scanned page on archive.org
This is the reading for February 24 in Fifteen Minutes a Day: The Reading Guide (1930 edition), page 34. There the assignment reads “Vol. 4, pp. 30–38.” Read it in the guide.