The Complete Poetry of John Milton (30 page)

   50        
On
Circe
’s Iland
⁹
fell (who knows not
Circe

               
The daughter of the Sun? whose charmed cup

               
Whoever tasted lost his upright shape

               
And downward fell into a groveling swine)

               
This nymph that gaz’d upon his clustring locks

   55        
With ivy berries wreath’d, and his blith youth

               
Had by him ere he parted thence, a son

               
Much like his father, but his mother more,

               
Whom therfore she brought up, and
Comus
nam’d,

               
Who ripe and frolick of his full grown age,

   60        
Roaving the
Celtick
, and
Iberian
feilds,
¹⁰

               
At last betakes him to this ominous wood,

               
And in thick shelter of black shade imbowr’d,

               
Excells his mother at her mighty art,

               
Offring to every weary travailer

   65        
His orient liquor in a crystal glass

               
To quench the drouth of
Phœbus
, which as they tast

               
(For most do tast through fond intemperate thirst)

               
Soon as the potion works, thir human countnance,

               
Th’ express resemblance of the gods, is chang’d

   70        
Into som brutish form of wolf or bear

               
Or Ounce,
¹¹
or tiger, hog, or bearded goat,

               
All other parts remaining as they were,

               
And they, so perfect is thir misery,

               
Not once perceave thir foul disfigurement,

   75        
But boast themselves more comely then before

               
And all thir freinds and native home forget

               
To roul with pleasure in a sensual stie.

               
Therfore when any favour’d of high
Jove

               
Chances to pass through this adventrous glade,

   80        
Swift as the sparkle of a glancing star

               
I shoot from Heav’n to give him safe convoy

               
As now I do: but first I must put off

               
These my sky robes spun out of
Iris
woof
¹²

               
And take the weeds and likenes of a swain

   85        
That to the service of this house belongs,

               
Who with his soft pipe and smooth-dittied song

               
Well knows to still the wild winds when they roar,
¹³

               
And hush the waving woods, nor of less faith,

               
And in this office of his mountain watch,

   90        
Likeliest and neerest to the present aid

               
Of this occasion, but I hear the tread

               
Of hatefull steps, I must be veiwles now.

Comus
enters with a charming rod in one hand, his glass in the other, with him a rout of monsters headed like sundry sorts of wild beasts, but otherwise like men and women, their apparell glistring; they com in making a riotous and unruly noise, with torches in their hands.

    
             
Comus.
The star that bids the shepherd fold,
¹⁴

               
Now the top of Heav’n doth hold,

   95        
And the gilded car of day

               
His glowing axle doth allay
¹⁵

               
In the steep
Atlantick
stream,

               
And the slope sun his upward beam

               
Shoots against the dusky pole,

   100     
Pacing toward the other goal

               
Of his chamber in the East.

               
Mean while welcom Joy and feast,

               
Midnight shout, and revelry,

               
Tipsie dance, and jollity.

   105     
Braid your locks with rosie twine

               
Dropping odours, dropping wine.

               
Rigor now is gon to bed,

               
And Advice with scrupulous head,

               
Strict age, and sowr severity

   110     
With thir grave saws in slumber lie.

               
We that are of purer fire

               
Imitate the starry quire,
¹⁰

               
Who in thir nightly watchfull sphears

               
Lead in swift round the months and years.

   115     
The sounds and seas with all thir finny drove

               
Now to the moon in wavering morrice
¹⁷
move,

               
And on the tawny sands and shelves

               
Trip the pert fairies, and the dapper elves.

               
By dimpled brook and fountain brim,

   120     
The wood nymphs deckt with daysies trim

               
Thir merry wakes
¹⁸
and pastimes keep:

               
What hath night to do with sleep?

               
Night has better sweets to prove,

               
Venus
now wakes, and wak’ns Love.

   125     
Com let us our rights begin,

               
’Tis only daylight that makes sin

               
Which these dun shades will ne’re report.

               
Hail goddess of nocturnal sport,

               
Dark-vaild Cotytto,
¹⁹
t’ whom the secret flame

   130     
Of midnight torches burns; mysterious Dame

               
That ne’re art call’d, but when the dragon womb

               
Of Stygian darknes spitts her thickest gloom

               
And makes one blot of all the air,

               
Stay thy cloudy ebon chair,

   135     
Wherin thou rid’st with
Hecat
’,
²⁰
and befreind

               
Us thy vow’d preists till utmost end

               
Of all thy dues be don and none left out,

               
Ere the blabbing eastern scout,

               
The nice morn on th’
Indian
steep

   140     
From her cabin’d loop hole peep,

               
And to the tell-tale sun discry

               
Our conceal’d solemnity.

               
Com, knit hands, and beat the ground,

               
In a light fantastick round.

   145     
Break off, break off, I feel the different pace

               
Of som chast footing neer about this ground,

               
Run to your shrouds within these brakes and trees,

               
Our number may affright. Som virgin sure

               
(For so I can distinguish by mine art)

   150     
Benighted in these woods. Now to my charms,

               
And to my wily trains;
²¹
I shall e’re long

               
Be well stock’t with as fair a herd as graz’d

               
About my mother
Circe.
Thus I hurl

               
My dazling spells into the spungy air,

   155     
Of power to cheat the eye with blear illusion

               
And give it false presentments, lest the place

               
And my quaint habits breed astonishment

               
And put the damsel to suspicious flight,

               
Which must not be, for that’s against my course;

   160     
I under fair pretence of freindly ends

               
And well-plac’t words of glozing
²²
courtesie

               
Baited with reasons not unplausible

               
Wind me into the easie-hearted man,

               
And hugg him into snares. When once her eye

   165     
Hath met the vertue of this magick dust,

               
I shall appear som harmles villager

               
Whom thrift keeps up about his country gear,

               
But heer she comes, I fairly step aside

               
And hearken, if I may, her buisness heer.

   170  
      
       
Lady.
This way the noise was, if mine ear be true,

               
My best guide now; me thought it was the sound

               
Of riot and ill-manag’d merriment,

               
Such as the jocond flute or gamesom pipe

               
Stirrs up amongst the loose unletter’d hinds,

   175     
When for thir teeming flocks, and granges full

               
In wanton dance they praise the bounteous
Pan
²³

               
And thank the gods amiss. I should be loath

               
To meet the rudeness and swill’d insolence

               
Of such late wassailers; yet O where els

   180     
Shall I inform my unacquainted feet

               
In the blind maze of this tangl’d Wood?

               
My brothers when they saw me wearied out

               
With this long way, resolving heer to lodge

               
Under the spreading favour of these pines,

   185     
Stept, as they sed, to the next thicket side

               
To bring me berries, or such cooling fruit

               
As the kind hospitable woods provide.

               
They left me then, when the gray-hooded Eev’n

               
Like a sad votarist in palmers weeds
²⁴

   190     
Rose from the hindmost wheels of
Phœbus
wain.

               
But where they are and why they came not back

               
Is now the labour of my thoughts; ‘tis likeliest

               
They had ingag’d thir wandring steps too far,

               
And envious darknes, e’re they could return,

   195     
Had stoln them from me; els O theevish night

               
Why shouldst thou, but for som fellonious end,

               
In thy dark lantern
²⁵
thus close up the stars

               
That nature hung in Heav’n, and fill’d thir lamps

               
With everlasting oil, to give due light

   200     
To the misled and lonely travailer?

               
This is the place, as well as I may guess,

               
Whence eev’n now the tumult of loud mirth

               
Was rife and perfet in my list’ning ear,

               
Yet nought but single darknes do I find.