The Complete Poetry of John Milton (32 page)

   345     
Or sound of pastoral reed with oaten stops,

               
Or whistle from the lodge, or village cock

               
Count the night watches to his feathery Dames,

               
’Twould be som solace yet, som little chearing

               
In this close dungeon of innumerous bows.

   350     
But O that haples virgin our lost sister,

               
Where may she wander now, whether betake her

               
From the chill dew, amongst rude burrs and thistles?

               
Perhaps som cold bank is her boulster now

               
Or ‘gainst the rugged bark of som broad Elm

   355     
Leans her unpillow’d head fraught with sad fears.

               
What if in wild amazement, and affright,

               
Or while we speak within the direfull grasp

               
Of Savage hunger, or of Savage heat?

           
      
       
Elder Brother.
Peace brother, be not over-exquisite
³⁵

   360     
To cast the fashion of uncertain evils;

               
For grant they be so, while they rest unknown,

               
What need a man forestall his date of grief,

               
And run to meet what he would most avoid?

               
Or if they be but false alarms of Fear,

   365     
How bitter is such self-delusion?

               
I do not think my sister so to seek,

               
Or so unprincipl’d in vertues book,

               
And the sweet peace that goodnes bosoms ever,

               
As that the single want of light and noise

   370     
(Not being in danger, as I trust she is not)

               
Could stir the constant mood of her calm thoughts,

               
And put them into misbecomming plight.

               
Vertue could see to do what vertue would

               
By her own radiant light, though sun and moon

   375     
Were in the flat sea sunk. And wisdoms self

               
Oft seeks to sweet retired solitude,

               
Where with her best nurse Contemplation

               
She plumes her feathers, and lets grow her wings

               
That in the various bustle of resort

   380     
Were all to
³⁶
ruffl’d, and somtimes impair’d.

               
He that has light within his own cleer brest

               
May sit i’th center,
³⁷
and enjoy bright day,

               
But he that hides a dark soul, and foul thoughts

               
Benighted walks under the midday sun;

   385     
Himself is his own dungeon.

           
      
       
2 Brother.
      Tis most true

               
That musing meditation most affects
³⁸

               
The Pensive secrecy of desert cell,

               
Far from the cheerfull haunt of men, and herds,

               
And sits as safe as in a Senat house,

   390     
For who would rob a Hermit of his weeds,

               
His few books, or his beads, or maple dish,

               
Or do his gray hairs any violence?

               
But beauty like the fair Hesperian Tree

               
Laden with blooming gold, had need the guard

   395     
Of dragon watch with uninchanted
³⁹
eye,

               
To save her blossoms and defend her fruit

               
From the rash hand of bold incontinence.
⁴⁰

               
You may as well spred out the unsun’d heaps

               
Of misers treasure by an outlaws den,

   400     
And tell me it is safe, as bid me hope

               
Danger will wink on opportunity,

               
And let a single helpless maiden pass

               
Uninjur’d in this wild surrounding wast.

               
Of night, or lonelines it recks me not,
⁴¹

   405     
I fear the dred events that dog them both,

               
Lest som ill greeting touch attempt the person

               
Of our unowned
⁴²
sister.

           
      
       
Elder Brother.
      I do not, brother,

               
Inferr, as if I thought my sisters state

               
Secure without all doubt, or controversie:

   410     
Yet where an equall poise of hope and fear

               
Does arbitrate th’ event, my nature is

               
That I encline to hope, rather then fear,

               
And banish gladly squint suspicion.

               
My sister is not so defenceless left

   415     
As you imagine, she has a hidden strength

               
Which you remember not.

           
      
       
2 Brother.
      What hidden strength,

               
Unless the strength of Heav’n, if you mean that?

           
      
       
Elder Brother.
I mean that too, but yet a hidden strength

               
Which if Heav’n gave it, may be term’d her own:

   420     
’Tis chastity, my brother, chastity:

               
She that has that, is clad in compleat steel,

               
And like a quiver’d nymph
⁴³
with arrows keen

               
May trace huge forests, and unharbour’d heaths,

               
Infamous hills, and sandy perilous wilds,

   425     
Where through the sacred rayes of chastity,

               
No savage feirce, bandite, or mountaneer

               
Will dare to soyl her virgin purity;

               
Yea there, where very desolation dwells

               
By grots, and caverns shag’d with horrid shades,

   430     
She may pass on with unblench’t majesty,

               
Be it not don in pride, or in presumption.

               
Som say no evil thing that walks by night

               
In fog, or fire, by lake, or moorie fen,

               
Blue meager hag, or stubborn unlaid ghost,

   435     
That breaks his magick chains at curfew time,

               
No goblin, or swart faery of the mine,

               
Has hurtfull power o’re true virginity.

               
Do ye beleeve me yet, or shall I call

               
Antiquity from the old schools of
Greece

   440     
To testifie the arms of chastity?

               
Hence had the huntress
Dian
her dred bow,

               
Fair silver-shafted Queen for ever chaste,

               
Wherwith she tam’d the brinded lioness

               
And spotted mountain pard,
⁴⁴
but set at naught

   445     
The frivolous bolt of
Cupid;
gods and men

               
Fear’d her stern frown, and she was queen o’th woods.

               
What was that snaky-headed
Gorgon
sheild

               
That wise
Minerva
wore,
⁴⁵
unconquer’d virgin,

               
Wherwith she freez’d her foes to congeal’d stone?

   450     
But rigid looks of chast austerity,

               
And noble grace that dash’t brute violence

               
With sudden adoration, and blank aw.

               
So dear to Heav’n is saintly chastity,

               
That when a soul is found sincerely so,

   455     
A thousand liveried angels lackey her,

               
Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt,

               
And in cleer dream, and solemn vision

               
Tell her of things that no gross ear can hear,

               
Till oft convers with heav’nly habitants

   460     
Begin to cast a beam on th’ outward shape,

               
The unpolluted temple of the mind,

               
And turns it by degrees to the souls essence,

               
Till all be made immortal: but when lust

               
By unchast looks, loose gestures, and foul talk,

   465     
But most by lewd and lavish act of sin,

               
Lets in defilement to the inward parts,

               
The soul grows clotted by contagion,

               
Imbodies, and imbrutes,
⁴⁶
till she quite loose

               
The divine property of her first being.

   470     
Such are those thick and gloomy shadows damp

               
Oft seen in charnel vaults, and sepulchers

               
Hovering, and sitting by a new made grave,

               
As loath to leave the body that it lov’d,

               
And link’t it self by carnal sensualty

   475     
To a degenerate and degraded state.

           
      
       
2 Brother.
How charming is divine philosophy!

               
Not harsh, and crabbed as dull fools suppose,

               
But musical as is
Apollo’s
lute,

               
And a perpetual feast of nectar’d sweets,

   480     
Where no crude surfet raigns.

           
      
       
Elder Brother.
      List, list, I hear

               
Som far off hallow break the silent Air.

           
      
       
2 Brother.
Me thought so too; what should it be?

           
      
       
Elder Brother.
      For certain

               
Either som one like us night-founder’d
⁴⁷
heer,

               
Or els som neighbour woodman, or at worst,

   485     
Som roaving robber calling to his fellows.

           
      
       
2 Brother.
Heav’n keep my sister! Agen, agen and neer,
⁴⁸

               
Best draw, and stand upon our guard.

           
      
       
Elder Brother.
      Ile hallow,

               
If he be freindly he comes well, if not,

               
Defence is a good cause, and Heav’n be for us.

   490     
That hallow I should know, what are you? speak;

               
Com not too neer, you fall on iron stakes
⁴⁹
else.

           
      
       
Spirit.
What voice is that, my young Lord? speak agen.

           
      
       
2 Brother.
O brother, ‘tis my fathers shepherd sure.

           
      
       
Elder Brother. Thyrsis?
Whose artfull strains have oft delaid