And Kings sate still with awfull eye,
As if they surely knew their sovran Lord
was by.

But peacefull was the night
Wherein the Prince of light

His raign of peace upon the earth
began:

The Windes with wonder whist,
Smoothly the waters kist,

Whispering new joyes to the milde
Ocean,

Who now hath quite forgot to rave, While Birds of Calm sit brooding on the charmed wave.

The Stars with deep amaze

Stand fixt in stedfast gaze,

Bending one way their pretious influence,

And will not take their flight,

For all the morning light,

Or Lucifer that often warn'd them

thence;

But in their glimmering Orbs did glow, Untill their Lord himself bespake, and bid them go.

And though the shady gloom
Had given day her room,

The Sun himself with-held his wonted

speed,

And hid his head for shame,

As his inferiour flame,

The new enlightn'd world no more should need;

He saw a greater Sun appear
Then his bright Throne, or burning
Axletree could bear.

The Shepherds on the Lawn,
Or ere the point of dawn,

Sate simply chatting in a rustick row;
Full little thought they than,
That the mighty Pan

Was kindly come to live with them

below;

Perhaps their loves, or els their sheep, Was all that did their silly thoughts so busie keep.

When such musick sweet

Their hearts and ears did greet,

As never was by mortall finger strook,

Divinely-warbled voice

Answering the stringèd noise,

As all their souls in blisfull rapture took

The Air such pleasure loth to lose, With thousand echo's still prolongs each heav'nly close.

Nature that heard such sound
Beneath the hollow round

Of Cynthia's seat, the Airy region
thrilling,

Now was almost won

To think her part was don,

And that her raign had here its last fulfilling;

She knew such harmony alone

Could hold all Heav'n and Earth in happier union.

At last surrounds their sight

A Globe of circular light,

That with long beams the shame-fac't
night array'd,

The helmèd Cherubim,
And sworded Seraphim,

Are seen in glittering ranks with wings displaid,

Harping in loud and solemn quire, With unexpressive notes to Heav'ns newborn Heir.

Such musick (as 'tis said)
Before was never made,

But when of old the sons of morning
sung,

While the Creator Great
His constellations set,

And the well-ballanc't world on hinges hung,

And cast the dark foundations deep,
And bid the weltring waves their oozy

channel keep.

Ring out ye Crystall sphears, Once bless our human ears,

(If ye have power to touch our senses
so)

And let your silver chime
Move in melodious time;

And let the Base of Heav'ns deep
Organ blow

And with your ninefold harmony
Make up full consort to th'Angelike
symphony.

For if such holy Song
Enwrap our fancy long,

Time will run back, and fetch the age of gold,

And speckl'd vanity

Will sicken soon and die,

And leprous sin will melt from earthly mould,

And Hell it self will pass away,

And leave her dolorous mansions to the peering day.

Yea Truth, and Justice then

Will down return to men,

Th'enameld Arras of the Rain-bow
wearing,

And Mercy set between,
Thron'd in Celestiall sheen,

With radiant feet the tissued clouds

down stearing,

And Heav'n as at som festivall,
Will open wide the Gates of her high
Palace Hall.

But wisest Fate sayes no,
This must not yet be so,

The Babe lies yet in smiling Infancy,
That on the bitter cross

Must redeem our loss;

So both himself and us to glorifie: Yet first to those ychain'd in sleep, The wakefull trump of doom must thunder through the deep,

With such a horrid clang

As on mount Sinai rang

While the red fire, and smouldring clouds out brake:

Our Babe to shew his Godhead true, Can in his swadling bands controul the damned crew.

So when the Sun in bed,
Curtain'd with cloudy red,

Pillows his chin upon an Orient wave,
The flocking shadows pale,
Troop to th'infernall jail,

Each fetter'd Ghost slips to his severall grave,

And the yellow-skirted Fayes,

Fly after the Night-steeds, leaving their Moon-lov'd maze.

But see the Virgin blest,

Hath laid her Babe to rest.

Time is our tedious Song should here
have ending,

Heav'ns youngest teemèd Star,
Hath fixt her polisht Car,

Her sleeping Lord with Handmaid.
Lamp attending:

And all about the Courtly Stable,
Bright-harnest Angels sit in order serv-
iceable.

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 lowbrowed rocks

As ragged as thy locks,

In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell.

But come, thou Goddess fair and free, In heaven ycleped 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 washt 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 wreathèd 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 ye 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 sweetbriar, 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 list'ning how the hounds and horn
Cheerly rouse the slumbring Morn,
From the side of some hoar hill,
Through the high wood echoing shrill:
Sometime walking, not unseen,
By hedge-row 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 lantskip round it measures:
Russet lawns, and fallows gray,
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.
Hard by, a cottage chimney smokes
From betwixt two aged oaks,
Where Corydon and Thyrsis met
Are at their savoury dinner set
Of herbs and other country messes,
Which the neat-handed Phillis dresses;
And then in haste her bower she leaves
With Thestylis to bind the sheaves;
Or, if the earlier season lead,
To the tanned haycock in the mead.
Sometimes with secure delight
The upland hamlets will invite,
When the merry bells ring round,
And the jocund rebecks sound
To many a youth and many a maid,
Dancing in the chequered shade;
And young and old come forth to play
On a sun-shine holyday,

Till the live-long day-light fail:
Then to the spicy nut-brown ale,
With stories told of many a feat,
How fairy Mab the junkets eat:-
She was pincht and pulled, she said;
And he, by Friar's lantern led,
Tells how the drudging goblin sweat
To earn his cream-bowl duly set,
When in one night, ere glimpse of morn,
His shadowy flail hath threshed the corn
That ten day-labourers could not end;
Then lies him down, the lubbar fend,
And stretcht out all the chimney's length,