To stand 'twixt us and our deserved smart? But thou canst best perform that office where thou art. XI. 70 Then thou, the mother of so sweet a child, ON TIME.* FLY, envious Time, till thou run out thy race; So little is our loss, So little is thy gain! For when as each thing bad thou hast entomb'd, Then long Eternity shall greet our bliss With an individual kiss; And Joy shall overtake us as a flood; When every thing that is sincerely good And perfectly divine, With Truth, and Peace, and Love, shall ever shine About the supreme throne Of him, to whose happy-making sight alone When once our heavenly-guided soul shall climb; Then, all this earthy grossness quit, Attired with stars, we shall for ever sit, Triumphing over Death, and Chance, and thee, O Time. AT A SOLEMN MUSICK.† BLEST pair of Sirens, pledges of Heaven's joy; 75 20 In Milton's manuscript, written with his own hand, the title is,-"On Time. To be set on a clock-case." †The "Ode at a Solemn Musick" is a short prelude to the strain of genius which produced "Paradise Lost." Warton says, that perhaps there are no finer lines in Milton than one long passage which he cites, (17-24.) I must say that this is going a little too far. That they are very fine I admit; but the sublime philosophy, to which he alludes as their prototype, must not be put in comparison with the fountains of Paradise Lost." So far they are exceedingly curious, that they show how early the poet had constructed in his own mind the language of his divine imagery, and how rich and vigorous his style was, atmost in his boy hood.-BRYDGES. 12. Individual: Eternal, inseparable. 14. Sincerely: Purely, perfectly. Wed your divine sounds, and mix'd power employ With saintly shout, and solemn jubilee; 5 10 With those just spirits that wear victorious palms, 15 Singing everlastingly: That we on earth, with undiscording voice, May rightly answer that melodious noise; As once we did, till disproportion'd sin Jarr'd against Nature's chime, and with harsh din 20 To their great Lord, whose love their motion sway'd In first obedience, and their state of good. O, may we soon again renew that song, 25 And keep in tune with Heaven, till God ere long To live with him, and sing in endless morn of light! AN EPITAPH ON THE MARCHIONESS OF WINCHESTER.* THIS rich marble doth inter The honour'd wife of Winchester, A viscount's daughter, an earl's heir, Added to her noble birth, More than she could own from earth. After so short time of breath, To house with darkness and with death. 5 10 In Howell's entertaining Letters, there is one to this lady,-the Lady Jane Savage Marchioness of Winchester,-dated March 15, 1626. He says, he assisted her in Tearning Spanish; and that Nature and the Graces exhausted all their treasure and skill in "framing this exact model of female perfection." 6. The undisturbed song of pure concent, is the diapason of the music of the spheres, to which, in Plato's system, God himself listens.-T. WARTON. See note on line 62 of "Arcades." p. 451. 17. That we on earth, &c. Perhaps there are no finer lines in Milton, less obscured by conceit, less embarrassed by affected expressions, and less weakened by pompous epithets: and in this perspicuous and simple style are conveyed some of the noblest ideas of a most sublime philosophy, heightened by metaphors and allusions suitable to the sub ject.-T. WARTON. Yet had the number of her days Her high birth, and her graces sweet, But with a scarce well-lighted flame; And calls Lucina to her throes: So have I seen some tender slip, Gentle lady, may thy grave Peace and quiet ever have; 22. Cypress bud: An emblem of a funeral, called by Horace funebris, and by Spenser "the cypress funeral." 28. Atropos, the fate who presided over death, Sent thee from the banks of Came, Devoted to thy virtuous name; Whilst thou, bright saint, high sit'st in glory, That fair Syrian shepherdess, Who, after years of barrenness, SONG ON MAY MORNING.* Now the bright morning-star, day's harbinger, This beautiful little song presents an eminent proof of Milton's attention to the effect of metre, in that admirable change of numbers with which he describes the appearance of the May Morning, and salutes her after she has appeared; as different as the subject is, and produced by the transition from iambics to trochaics. So in "L'Allegro," he banishes Melancholy in iambics, but invites Euphrosyne and her attendants in trochaics.-TODD. 59. Banks of Cime: The Camus anglicised. See "Lycidas," 103. "I have been told that there was a Cambridge-collec tion of verses on her death, among which Milton's elegiack ode first appeared."-T. WARTON. 63. Syrian shepherdess: Rachel. Gen. ΧΧΧ. 22, 23. 68. Through pangs, &c. We cannot too much admire the beauty of this line: I wish it had closed the poem, which it would have done with singular effect. What follows serves only to weaken it, and the last verse is an eminent instance of the bathos.-DUNSTER. MISCELLANIES. ANNO ETATIS XIX. At a VACATION EXERCISE in the College, part Latin, part English. HAIL, native Language, that by sinews weak Small loss it is that thence can come unto thee; I know my tongue but little grace can do thee: The daintiest dishes shall be served up last. For this same small neglect that I have made: 5 10 15 20 * Written in 1627. The "Verses at a Vacation Exercise in College," are full of ingenuity and imagery, and have several fine passages; but, though they blame "new-fangled toys" with a noble disdain, they are themselves in many parts too fantastic.-BRYDGES. 19. Not those new fangled toys, &c. Perhaps he here alludes to Lilly's "Euphues," a book full of affected phraseology, which pretended to reform or refine the English language. The ladies and the courtiers were all instructed in this new style, and it was esteemed a mark of ignorance or unpoliteness not to understand Euphuism. 21. Bet cull, &c. From a youth of nineteen these are striking expressions of a consciousness of superior genius, and of an ambition to rise above the level of the fashionable rhymers. At so early an age Milton began to conceive a contempt for the poetry in vogue; and this he seems to have retained to the last. In the Tractate on Education." recommending to his pupils the study of good critics, he adds, "This would make them soon perceive what despicable creatures our common rhymers and play-writers be; and show what religious, what glorious, what magnificent use might be made of poetry." Milton's own writings are the most illustrious proof of this.-T. WAR TON. |