The Complete Poetry of John Milton (27 page)
Read The Complete Poetry of John Milton Online
Authors: John Milton
Tags: #English; Irish; Scottish; Welsh, #Poetry, #European
145
That
Orpheus
19
self may heave his head
From golden slumber on a bed
Of heapt
Elysian
flowrs, and hear
Such streins as would have won the ear
Of
Pluto
, to have quite set free
150
His half-regain’d
Eurydice.
These delights, if thou canst give,
Mirth with thee I mean to live.
20
(
1631 ?
)
1
“The joyful man” delights in the pleasures of day and light, and in those happy activities of night which are enjoyed with others. Its companion and structurally parallel poem,
Il Penseroso
, “the contemplative man,” presents images of pensiveness and darkness, and thus of aloneness and primarily night. Notable is the strong Platonic element.
The contrasting first ten lines of each poem have been traced to a number of literary sources for metrics and subject matter. The antithetic subjects of the twin poems were probably conceived as a kind of scholastic exercise such as produced the first and seventh prolusions, “Whether Day or Night Is the More Excellent” and “Learning Makes Men Happier than Ignorance.”
2
the watchdog of Hades; “Stygian,” l. 3, refers to one of the rivers flowing through Hell.
3
unfamiliar.
4
called. The sister Graces (l. 15) are Aglaia (Brilliance) and Thalia (Bloom).
5
probably meaning “some who are Sager.”
6
goddess of youth.
7
light gray (at dawn).
8
out in the open.
9
stately progress.
10
spotted.
11
commonplace rustic names as are “Phillis” (l. 86) and “Thestylis” (l. 88).
12
free from care.
13
one of the tellers of tales, as is “he,” l. 104.
14
ignis fatuus
, a misleading light; probably the Friar is identical with the “Goblin,” l. 105, and “Lubbar Fend,” l. 110 (Robin Goodfellow).
15
festivals.
16
god of marriage, a frequent character in court masques.
17
low-heeled slippers worn by actors in comedy; hence, when one of Jonson’s comedies is being played.
18
imagination’s.
19
Orpheus sought to recover his wife Eurydice from Pluto’s realm of death; his wondrous music gained his wish for him on the condition that he not look back as she followed. But he failed as they neared the upper world and Eurydice vanished.
20
Compare Marlowe’s: “If these delights thy mind may move, Then live with me, and be my love.”
Hence vain deluding joyes,
The brood of folly without father bred,
How little you bested,
Or fill the fixed mind with all your toyes;
5
Dwell in som idle brain,
And fancies fond
1
with gaudy shapes possess,
As thick and numberless
As the gay motes that people the Sun Beams,
Or likest hovering dreams
10
The fickle Pensioners of
Morpheus
train.
2
But hail thou Goddes, sage and holy,
Hail divinest Melancholy,
Whose Saintly visage is too bright
To hit the Sense of human sight;
15
And therfore to our weaker view,
O’re laid with black staid Wisdoms hue.
Black, but such as in esteem,
Prince
Memnons
3
sister might beseem,
Or that Starr’d
Ethiope
Queen
4
that strove
20
To set her beauties praise above
The Sea Nymphs, and their powers offended.
Yet thou art higher far descended,
Thee bright-hair’d
Vesta
5
long of yore,
To solitary
Saturn
bore;
25
His daughter she (in
Saturns
raign,
Such mixture was not held a stain)
Oft in glimmering Bowrs, and glades
He met her, and in secret shades
Of woody
Ida’s
inmost grove,
30
While yet there was no fear of
Jove.
6
Com pensive Nun, devout and pure,
Sober, stedfast, and demure,
All in a robe of darkest grain,
Flowing with majestick train,
35
And sable stole of
Cipres
Lawn,
7
Over thy decent shoulders drawn.
Com, but keep thy wonted state,
With eev’n step, and musing gate,
And looks commercing with the skies,
40
Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes:
There held in holy passion still,
Forget thy self to Marble, till
With a sad
8
Leaden downward cast,
Thou fix them on the earth as fast.
45
And joyn with thee calm Peace, and Quiet,
Spare Fast, that oft with gods doth diet,
And hears the Muses in a ring,
Ay round about
Joves
Altar sing.
And add to these retired leasure,
50
That in trim Gardens takes his pleasure;
But first, and chiefest, with thee bring
Him that yon soars on golden wing,
Guiding the fiery-wheeled throne,
9
The Cherub Contemplation,
10
55
And the mute Silence hist along,
’Less
Philomel
11
will daign a Song,
In her sweetest, saddest plight,
Smoothing the rugged brow of night,
While
Cynthia
checks her Dragon yoke,
12
60
Gently o’re th’ accustom’d Oak;
Sweet Bird that shunn’st the noise of folly,
Most musicall, most melancholy!
Thee Chauntress oft the Woods among,
I woo to hear thy eeven Song;
65
And missing thee, I walk unseen
On the dry smooth-shaven Green,
To behold the wandring Moon,
Riding neer her highest noon,
Like one that had bin led astray
70
Through the Heav’ns wide pathles way;
And oft, as if her head she bow’d,
Stooping through a fleecy cloud.
Oft on a Plat of rising ground,
I hear the far-off Curfew sound,
75
Over som wide-water’d shoar,
Swinging slow with sullen roar;
Or if the Ayr will not permit,
Som still removed place will fit,
Where glowing Embers through the room
80
Teach light to counterfeit a gloom,
Far from all resort of mirth,
Save the Cricket on the hearth,
Or the Belmans
13
drousie charm,
To bless the dores from nightly harm:
85
Or let my Lamp at midnight hour,
Be seen in som high lonely Towr,
Where I may oft out-watch the
Bear
,
14
With thrice great
Hermes
, or unsphear
The spirit of
Plato
to unfold
90
What Worlds, or what vast Regions hold
Th’ immortal mind that hath forsook
Her mansion in this fleshly nook:
And of those
Dæmons
15
that are found
In fire, air, flood, or under ground,
95
Whose power hath a true consent
With Planet, or with Element.
Som time let Gorgeous Tragedy
In Scepter’d Pall com sweeping by,
Presenting
Thebes
, or
Pelops
line,
100
Or the tale of
Troy
divine,
16
Or what (though rare) of later age,
Ennobled hath the Buskind stage.
But, O sad Virgin, that thy power
Might raise
Musæus
17
from his bower,
105
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.
18
Or call up him
19
that left half told
110
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,
115
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;
Of Forests, and inchantments drear,
120
Where more is meant then meets the ear.
Thus night oft see me in thy pale career,
20
Till civil-suited
21
Morn appeer,
Not trickt and frounc’t as she was wont,
With the Attick Boy
22
to hunt,
125
But Cherchef’t in a comly Cloud,
While rocking Winds are Piping loud,
Or usher’d with a shower still,
When the gust hath blown his fill,
Ending on the russling Leaves,