1

Where perhaps some Beauty lies,
The Cynosure of neighbouring eyes.
Hard by, a cottage chimney smokes
From betwixt two agèd oaks,
Where Corydon 1 and Thyrsis 1 met
Are at their savoury dinner set
Of herbs and other country messes,
Which the neat-handed Phillis 1 dresses;
And then in haste her bower she leaves,
With Thestylis 2 to bind the sheaves,
Or, if the earlier season lead,
To the tanned haycock in the mead.
Sometimes with secure delight
The upland 3 hamlets will invite,
When the merry bells ring round
And the jocund rebecks sound
To many a youth and many a maid
Dancing in the chequered shade,
And young and old come forth to play
On a sunshine holiday,

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 4 led,
Tells how the drudging goblin 5 swet
To earn his cream-bowl duly set,

6

1 Shepherd names from the Seventh Eclogue of Vergil. 2 A name taken from the Second Eclogue of Vergil. 3 Country.

4 There is said to be a confusion here between "Friar Rush, who haunted houses, and Jack o' Lanthorn, who haunted fields."

5 Robin Goodfellow.

6 Old past tense.

When in one night, ere glimpse of morn,
His shadowy flail hath threshed the corn
That ten day-labourers could not end;
Then lies him down the lubber 1 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 mattin 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 2 hold,
With store of ladies whose bright eyes
Rain influence, and judge the prize
Of wit or arms, while both contend
To win her grace whom all commend.
There let Hymen oft appear

In saffron robe, with taper clear,

3

And pomp, and feast, and revelry,
With masque and antique pageantry,
Such sights as youthful poets dream
On summer eves by haunted stream.
Then to the well-trod stage anon,
If Jonson's learned sock 4 be on,
Or sweetest Shakspeare, Fancy's child,
Warble his native wood-notes wild.

And ever against eating cares

Lap me in soft Lydian 5 airs,

4 Soccus, a shoe worn by comic actors.

3 Procession.

5 Of the three ancient musical modes or scales (Dorian, Phrygian, and Lydian), the Lydian was the softest and tenderest.

Married to immortal verse;

Such as the mecting soul may pierce
In notes with many a winding bout
Of linked sweetness long drawn out;
With wanton heed and giddy cunning,
The melting voice through mazes running,
Untwisting all the chains that tie
The hidden soul of harmony:

That Orpheus' self may heave his head
From golden slumber on a bed

Of heaped Elysian flowers, and hear
Such strains as would have won the ear
Of Pluto to have quite set free
His half-regained Eurydice.

These delights if thou canst give,

Mirth, with thee I mean to live.

J. MILTON 1

17. SONG IN ABSENCE

THE sun rises bright in France,

And fair sets he;

But he has tint 2 the blithe blink he had

In my ain countrie.

O gladness comes to many,

But sorrow comes to me,

As I look o'er the wide ocean

To my ain countrie.

1 For fuller notes to this and other poems by Milton, see Mr. Hales's Longer English Poems (Macmillan).

2 Lost.

O it's nae my ain ruin

That saddens aye my e'e,
But the love I left in Galloway,
Wi' bonnie bairnies three.
My hamely hearth burnt bonnie
An' smiled my fair Marie :
I've left my heart behind me
In my ain countrie.

The bud comes back to summer,
And the blossom to the bee;
But I'll win back-O never,

To my ain countrie.

I'm leal to the high Heaven,
Which will be leal to me,

An' there I'll meet ye a' sune

Frae my ain countrie.

A. CUNNINGHAM

18. A QUIET MIND

WHEN all is done and said, in the end this shall you find :

He most of all doth bathe in bliss that hath a quiet mind;

And, clear from worldly cares, to deem can be

content

The sweetest time in all this life in thinking to be spent.

The body subject is to fickle Fortune's power, And to a million of mishaps is casual every hour;

And death in time doth change it to a clod of

clay :

Whereas the mind, which is divine, runs never to

decay.

Companion none is like unto the mind alone, For many have been harmed by speech-through thinking few, or none :

Fear oftentimes restraineth words, but makes not thoughts to cease;

And he speaks best that hath the skill when for to hold his peace.

Our wealth leaves us at death, our kinsmen at

the grave;

But virtues of the mind unto the heavens with us

we have:

Wherefore, for virtue's sake, I can be well content

The sweetest time in all my life to deem in think

ing spent.

THOMAS (LORD) VAUX

19. TO A CHILD IN HEAVEN

I CARE not, though it be

By the preciser sort thought Popery ;
We poets can a licence show

For every thing we do:

Hear then, my little saint,—I'll pray to thee.

If now thy happy mind

Amidst its various joys can leisure find