L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas

Excerpt

L'ALLEGRO

  HENCE, loathed Melancholy,
  …………Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born
  In Stygian cave forlorn
  …………'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights
  unholy!
  Find out some uncouth cell,
  …………Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings,
  And the night-raven sings;
  …………There, under ebon shades and low-browed rocks,
  As ragged as thy locks,
  …………In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell.
  But come, thou Goddess fair and free,
  In heaven yclept Euphrosyne,
  And by men heart-easing Mirth;
  Whom lovely Venus, at a birth,
  With two sister Graces more,
  To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore:
  Or whether (as some sager sing)
  The frolic wind that breathes the spring,
  Zephyr, with Aurora playing,
  As he met her once a-Maying,
  There, on beds of violets blue,
  And fresh-blown roses washed in dew,
  Filled her with thee, a daughter fair,
  So buxom, blithe, and debonair.
  Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee
  Jest, and youthful Jollity,
  Quips and cranks and wanton wiles,
  Nods and becks and wreathed smiles
  Such as hang on Hebe's cheek,
  And love to live in dimple sleek;
  Sport that wrinkled Care derides,
  And Laughter holding both his sides.
  Come, and trip it, as you go,
  On the light fantastic toe;
  And in thy right hand lead with thee
  The mountain-nymph, sweet Liberty;
  And, if I give thee honour due,
  Mirth, admit me of thy crew,
  To live with her, and live with thee,
  In unreproved pleasures free:
  To hear the lark begin his flight,
  And, singing, startle the dull night,
  From his watch-tower in the skies,
  Till the dappled dawn doth rise;
  Then to come, in spite of sorrow,
  And at my window bid good-morrow,
  Through the sweet-briar or the vine,
  Or the twisted eglantine;
  While the cock, with lively din,
  Scatters the rear of darkness thin,
  And to the stack, or the barn-door,
  Stoutly struts his dames before:
  Oft listening how the hounds and horn
  Cheerly rouse the slumbering morn,
  From the side of some hoar hill,
  Through the high wood echoing shrill:
  Sometime walking, not unseen,
  By hedgerow elms, on hillocks green,
  Right against the eastern gate
  Where the great Sun begins his state,
  Robed in flames and amber light,
  The clouds in thousand liveries dight;
  While the ploughman, near at hand,
  Whistles o'er the furrowed land,
  And the milkmaid singeth blithe,
  And the mower whets his scythe,
  And every shepherd tells his tale
  Under the hawthorn in the dale.
  Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures,
  Whilst the landskip round it measures:
  Russet lawns, and fallows grey,
  Where the nibbling flocks do stray;
  Mountains on whose barren breast
  The labouring clouds do often rest;
  Meadows trim, with daisies pied;
  Shallow brooks, and rivers wide;
  Towers and battlements it sees
  Bosomed high in tufted trees,
  Where perhaps some beauty lies,
  The cynosure of neighbouring eyes....