The Annotated Milton: Complete English Poems (14 page)

And lead ye where you may more near behold

What shallow-searching fame hath left untold,

Which I full oft, amidst these shades alone,

Have sat to wonder at and gaze upon.

For know, by lot
⁶³⁸
from Jove I am the pow’r

Of this fair wood and live in oaken bow’r

To nurse the saplings tall, and curl the grove

With ringlets quaint,
⁶³⁹
and wanton
⁶⁴⁰
windings wove.

And all my plants I save from nightly ill

Of noisome
⁶⁴¹
winds or blasting
⁶⁴²
vapors chill,

And from the boughs brush off the evil dew

And heal the harms, of
⁶⁴³
thwarting
⁶⁴⁴
thunder blew,

Or what the cross, dire-looking planet
⁶⁴⁵
smites,

Or hurtful worm with cankered
⁶⁴⁶
venom bites.

When evening gray doth rise, I fetch
⁶⁴⁷
my round

Over the mount, and all this hallowed ground,

And early, ere the odorous breath of morn

Awakes the slumb’ring leaves, or tasseled horn
⁶⁴⁸

Shakes the high thicket, haste I all about,

Number
⁶⁴⁹
my ranks,
⁶⁵⁰
and visit every sprout

With puissant
⁶⁵¹
words, and murmurs made to bless.

But else, in deep of night, when drowsiness

Hath locked up mortal sense, then listen I

To the celestial sirens’ harmony,

That sit upon the nine enfoldèd spheres

And sing to those that hold the vital shears
⁶⁵²

And turn the adamantine
⁶⁵³
spindle round,
⁶⁵⁴

On which the fate of gods and men is wound.

Such sweet compulsion doth in music lie

To lull the daughters of Necessity

And keep unsteady
⁶⁵⁵
Nature to her law,

And the low
⁶⁵⁶
world in measured
⁶⁵⁷
motion draw

After the heav’nly tune, which none can hear

Of human mould, with gross
⁶⁵⁸
unpurgèd
⁶⁵⁹
ear.

And yet such music worthiest were to blaze

The peerless height of her immortal praise,

Whose luster leads us, and for her most fit,

If my inferior hand or voice could hit

Inimitable sounds. Yet as we go

Whate’er the skill of lesser gods can show

I will assay,
⁶⁶⁰
her worth to celebrate.

And so attend
⁶⁶¹
ye toward her glittering state,

Where ye may all (that are of noble stem)
⁶⁶²

Approach, and kiss her sacred vesture’s
⁶⁶³
hem.

2. Song

O’er the smooth enamelled
⁶⁶⁴
green

Where no print of step hath been,

Follow me as I sing

And touch the warbled string.

Under the shady roof

Of branching elm, star-proof,
⁶⁶⁵

Follow me:

I will bring you where she sits,

Clad in splendor as befits

Her deity.

Such a rural queen

All Arcadia hath not seen.

3. Song

Nymphs and shepherds, dance no more

By sandy Ladon’s
⁶⁶⁶
lillied banks.

On old Lycaeus,
⁶⁶⁷
or Cyllene
⁶⁶⁸
hoar,
⁶⁶⁹

Trip no more in twilight ranks.

Though Erymanth
⁶⁷⁰
your loss deplore

A better soil shall give you thanks.

From the stony Maenalus
⁶⁷¹

Bring your flocks and live with us.

Here ye shall have greater grace

To serve the lady of this place.

Though Syrinx
⁶⁷²
your Pan’s mistress were,

Yet Syrinx well might wait on her.

Such a rural queen

All Arcadia hath not seen.

COMUS: A MASQUE
⁶⁷³

1634; revised 1637

THE PERSONS

the attendant spirit, afterwards in the habit of Thyrsis

Comus, with his crew

the lady

brother 1 [older]

brother 2 [younger]

Sabrina, the nymph

The first scene discovers a wild wood. The attendant spirit

descends (or enters):

Before the starry threshold of Jove’s court

My mansion is, where those immortal shapes

Of bright aerial spirits live ensphered

In regions mild, of calm and serene air,

Above the smoke and stir of this dim spot

Which men call earth and, with low-thoughtèd care,

Confined and pestered in this pinfold
⁶⁷⁴
here,

Strive to keep up a frail and fev’rish being,

Unmindful of the crown that virtue gives,

After this mortal change, to her true servants,

Amongst the enthronèd gods, on sainted seats.

Yet some there be that by due steps aspire

To lay their just hands on that golden key

That opes the palace of eternity:

To such my errand is, and but for such

I would not soil these pure ambrosial weeds

With the rank vapors of this sin-worn mould.

But to my task. Neptune—besides the sway

Of every salt flood, and each ebbing stream—

Took in, by lot twixt high and nether Jove,
⁶⁷⁵

Imperial rule of all the sea-girt isles

That, like to rich and various gems, inlay

The unadornèd bosom of the deep,

Which he, to grace his tributary gods,

By course
⁶⁷⁶
commits to several government

And gives them leave to wear their sapphire crowns

And wield their little tridents. But this isle,

The greatest and the best of all the main,
⁶⁷⁷

He quarters to his blue-haired deities,

And all this tract that fronts the falling sun

A noble peer, of mickle
⁶⁷⁸
trust and power,

Has in his charge, with tempered
⁶⁷⁹
awe
⁶⁸⁰
to guide

An old and haughty nation, proud in arms,

Where his fair offspring, nursed in princely lore,

Are coming to attend their father’s state

And new-entrusted scepter. But their way

Lies through the perplex’d
⁶⁸¹
paths of this drear Wood,

The nodding horror of whose shady brows

Threats the forlorn and wand’ring passenger.

And here their tender age might suffer peril,

But that by quick command from sov’reign Jove

I was dispatched for their defence and guard.

And listen why, for I will tell you now

What never yet was heard in tale or song

From old or modern bard, in hall or bow’r.

Bacchus, that first from out the purple grape

Crushed the sweet poison of mis-used wine,

After the Tuscan mariners transformed,

Coasting the Tyrrhene shore, as the winds listed

On Circe’s island fell (who knows not Circe,

The daughter of the sun? whose charmèd cup

Whoever tasted lost his upright shape

And downward fell, into a grovelling swine).

This nymph that gazed upon his
⁶⁸²
clust’ring locks

With ivy berries wreathed, and his blithe youth,

Had by him, ere he parted thence, a son

Much like his father, but his mother more,

Whom therefore she brought up and Comus named,

Who ripe and frolic
⁶⁸³
of
⁶⁸⁴
his full-grown age,

Roving the Celtic and Iberian fields,

At last betakes him to this ominous
⁶⁸⁵
Wood

And, in thick shelter of black shade embow’red,

Excells his mother at her mighty art,

Off ’ring to every weary traveller

His orient
⁶⁸⁶
liquor, in a crystal glass,

To quench the drought of Phoebus, which as they taste

(For most do taste, through fond,
⁶⁸⁷
intemperate thirst),

Soon as the potion works, their human count’nance—

Th’ express resemblance of the gods—is changed

Into some brutish form of wolf or bear

Or ounce,
⁶⁸⁸
or tiger, hog, or bearded goat,

All other parts remaining as they were.

And they, so perfect is their misery,

Not once perceive their foul disfigurement,

But boast themselves more comely
⁶⁸⁹
than before

And all their friends and native home forget,

To roll with pleasure in a sensual sty.

Therefore, when any favored of high Jove

Chances to pass through this advent’rous glade,

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
⁶⁹⁰
woof,

And take the weeds
⁶⁹¹
and likeness of a swain
⁶⁹²