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
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
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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!
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COMUS. Imports
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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
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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
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of this wide wood,
And every bosky
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bourn,
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from side to side
My daily walks and ancient neighborhood,
And if your stray attendance
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be yet lodged
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Or shroud
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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
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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
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than this, or less secure,
I cannot be, that I should fear to change it.
Eye me, blest providence, and square
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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
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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
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candle from the wicker hole
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Of some clay habitation visit us
With thy long levelled rule of streaming light,
And thou shalt be our star of Arcady
789
BROTHER 2. Or if our eyes
Be barred that happiness, might we but hear
The folded
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flocks penned in their wattled
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cotes,
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Or sound of pastoral reed
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with oaten
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stops,
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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
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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,
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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
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the fashion
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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
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ever,
As that the single want of light and noise
(Not being in danger, as I trust she is not)
Could stir the constant
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mood of her calm thoughts
And put them into misbecoming
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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
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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