The Annotated Milton: Complete English Poems (16 page)

Read The Annotated Milton: Complete English Poems Online

Authors: John Milton,Burton Raffel

Tags: #Fiction, #General, #Literary Collections, #Poetry, #Classics, #English; Irish; Scottish; Welsh, #English poetry

BOOK: The Annotated Milton: Complete English Poems
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To touch the prosperous growth of this tall Wood!

LADY. Nay, gentle shepherd, ill is lost that praise

That is addressed to unattending ears.

Not any boast of skill, but extreme shift
761

How to regain my severed company

Compelled me to awake the courteous Echo

To give me answer from her mossy couch.

COMUS. What chance, good lady, hath bereft you thus?

LADY. Dim darkness, and this leafy labyrinth.

COMUS. Could that divide you from near-ushering
762

guides?

LADY. They left me, weary, on a grassy turf.

COMUS. By falsehood, or discourtesy, or why?

LADY. To seek i’ th’ valley some cool friendly spring.

COMUS. And left your fair side all unguarded, lady?

LADY. They were but twain, and purposed quick return.

COMUS. Perhaps forestalling night prevented them?

LADY. How easy my misfortune is to hit!
763

COMUS. Imports
764
their loss, beside the present need?

LADY. No less than if I should my brothers lose.

COMUS. Were they of manly prime, or youthful bloom?

LADY. As smooth as Hebe’s,
765
their unrazored lips.

COMUS. Two such I saw, what time the labored ox

In his loose traces
766
from the furrow came,

And the swinked
767
hedger
768
at his supper sat.

I saw ’em under a green mantling
769
vine

That crawls along the side of yon small hill,

Plucking ripe clusters from the tender shoots.

Their port
770
was more than human, as they stood:

I took it for a fairy vision

Of some gay
771
creatures of the element

That in the colors of the rainbow live

And play i’ th’ pleated clouds. I was awe-struck,

And as I passed I worshipped! If those you seek,

It were a journey like the path to Heav’n

To help you find them.

LADY. Gentle villager,

What readiest way would bring me to that place?

COMUS. Due west it rises, from this shrubby point.

LADY. To find out that, good shepherd, I suppose,

In such a scant allowance of star-light,

Would overtask the best land-pilot’s art,

Without the sure guess of well-practiced feet.

COMUS. I know each lane, and every alley green,

Dingle
772
or bushy dell
773
of this wide wood,

And every bosky
774
bourn,
775
from side to side

My daily walks and ancient neighborhood,

And if your stray attendance
776
be yet lodged
777

Or shroud
778
within these limits, I shall know

Ere morrow wake or the low-roosted lark

From her thatched pallet
779
rouse. If otherwise,

I can conduct you, lady, to a low
780

But loyal
781
cottage, where you may be safe

Till further quest.

LADY. Shepherd, I take thy word

And trust thy honest offered courtesy,

Which oft is sooner found in lowly sheds

With smoky rafters than in tap’stry halls

And courts of princes, where it first was named

And yet is most pretended. In a place

Less warranted
782
than this, or less secure,

I cannot be, that I should fear to change it.

Eye me, blest providence, and square
783
my trial

To my proportioned strength!

Shepherd, lead on.—

The two brothers.

BROTHER 1. Unmuffle, ye faint stars, and thou fair moon

That wont’st
784
to love the traveller’s benison,
785

Stoop thy pale visage through an amber cloud

And disinherit chaos, that reigns here

In double night of darkness and of shades!

Or if your influence be quite dammed up

With black, usurping mists, some gentle taper
786

Through a rush
787
candle from the wicker hole
788

Of some clay habitation visit us

With thy long levelled rule of streaming light,

And thou shalt be our star of Arcady
789

Or Tyrian
790
Cynosure.
791

BROTHER 2. Or if our eyes

Be barred that happiness, might we but hear

The folded
792
flocks penned in their wattled
793
cotes,
794

Or sound of pastoral reed
795
with oaten
796
stops,
797

Or whistle from the lodge, or village cock

Count the night watches to his feathery dames,

It would be some solace yet, some little cheering

In this close
798
dungeon of innumerous boughs.

But O, that hapless virgin, our lost sister!

Where may she wander now? Whither betake her

From the chill dew, amongst rude burrs and thistles?

Perhaps some cold bank
799
is her bolster,
800
now,

Or ’gainst the rugged bark of some broad elm

Leans her unpillowed head, fraught
801
with sad fears.

What if in wild amazement and affright,

Or while we speak, within the direful grasp

Of savage hunger, or of savage heat?

BROTHER 1. Peace, brother: be not over-exquisite
802

To cast
803
the fashion
804
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,

How bitter is such self-delusion?

I do not think my sister so to seek,
805

Or so unprincipled in virtue’s book

And the sweet peace that goodness bosoms
806
ever,

As that the single want of light and noise

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

Could stir the constant
807
mood of her calm thoughts

And put them into misbecoming
808
plight.
809

Virtue could see to do what virtue would,

By her own radiant light, though sun and moon

Were in the flat sea sunk. And wisdom’s self

Oft seeks to sweet, retired solitude,

Where with her best nurse, contemplation,
810

She plumes
811
her feathers and lets grow her wings

That in the various bustle of resort
812

Were all too ruffled,
813
and sometimes impaired.

He that has light within his own clear breast

May sit i’ th’ center
814
and enjoy bright day,

But he that hides a dark soul, and foul thoughts,

Benighted
815
walks under the midday sun—

Himself is his own dungeon.

BROTHER 2. ’Tis most true

That musing meditation most affects
816

The pensive secrecy of desert cell,
817

Far from the cheerful haunt
818
of men and herds,

And sits as safe as in a Senate house—

For who would rob a hermit of his weeds,
819
390

His few books, or his beads,
820
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

Of dragon watch with unenchanted eye,

To save her blossoms and defend her fruit

From the rash hand of bold incontinence.
821

You may as well spread out the unsunned heaps

Of miser’s treasure by an outlaw’s den

And tell me it is safe, as bid me hope

Danger will wink on opportunity

And let a single helpless maiden pass

Uninjured, in this wild surrounding waste.

Of night or loneliness, it recks me not:

I fear the dread events that dog them both,

Lest some ill greeting touch attempt
822
the person
823

Of our unownèd
824
sister.

BROTHER 1. I do not, brother,

Infer,
825
as if I thought my sister’s state

Secure without all doubt or controversy.

Yet where an equal poise
826
of hope and fear

Does arbitrate
827
th’ event, my nature is

That I incline to hope rather than fear

And banish, gladly, squint
828
suspicion.

My sister is not so defenceless left

As you imagine. She has a hidden strength

Which you remember not.

BROTHER 2. What hidden strength,

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

BROTHER 1. I mean that too, but yet a hidden strength

Which, if Heav’n gave it, may be termed her own.

’Tis chastity, my brother, chastity.

She that has that is clad in complete steel,

And like a quivered nymph with arrows keen

May trace
829
huge forests and unharbored
830
heaths,
831

Infamous hills and sandy perilous wilds,

Where through the sacred rays of chastity

No savage fierce, bandit or mountaineer,

Will dare to soil her virgin purity.

Yea, there where very desolation dwells,

By grots
832
and caverns shagged
833
with horrid
834
shades,

She may pass on with unblenched
835
majesty—

Be it not done in pride or in presumption.

Some say no evil thing that walks by night

In fog, or fire, by lake or moory
836
fen,
837

Blue meager hag or stubborn unlaid
838
ghost

That breaks his chains at curfew time,

No goblin or swart
839
fairy of the mine,
840

Has hurtful power o’er true virginity.

Do you believe me yet, or shall I call

Antiquity from the old schools of Greece

To testify the arms
841
of chastity?

Hence had the huntress Dian her dread bow,

Fair silver-shafted queen, forever chaste,

Wherewith she tamed the brinded
842
lioness

And spotted mountain pard,
843
but set at naught

The frivolous bolt
844
of Cupid. Gods and men

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

What was that snaky-headed Gorgon shield

That wise Minerva wore, unconquered virgin,

Wherewith she freezed her foes to congealed stone,

But rigid looks of chaste austerity,

And noble grace that dashed
845
brute violence

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