Il Penseroso / John Milton

This is the companion piece to Milton's "L'Allegro".

Hence, vain deluding joys,

The brood of folly without father bred,

How little you bestead,

Or fill the fixed mind with all your toys!

Dwell in some idle brain,

And fancies fond with gaudy shapes possess,

As thick and numberless

As the gay motes that people the sunbeams,

Or likest hovering dreams,

The fickle pensioners of Morpheus' train.

But hail thou Goddess sage and holy,

Hail divinest Melancholy,

Whose saintly visage is too bright

To hit the sense of human sight,

And therefore to our weaker view

O'erlaid with black, staid Wisdom's hue;

Black, but such as in esteem

Prince Memnon's sister might beseem,

Or that starred Ethiop queen that strove

To set her beauty's praise above

The Sea-Nymphs, and their pow'rs offended.

Yet thou art higher far descended;

Thee bright-haired Vesta long of yore

To solitary Saturn bore;

His daughter she (in Saturn's reign

Such mixture was not held a stain).

Oft in glimmering bow'rs and glades

He met her, and in secret shades

Of woody Ida's inmost grove,

While yet there was no fear of Jove.

Come, pensive Nun, devout and pure,

Sober, steadfast, and demure,

All in a robe of darkest grain,

Flowing with majestic train,

And sable stole of cypres lawn,

Over thy decent shoulders drawn:

Come, but keep thy wonted state,

With even step, and musing gait,

And looks commercing with the skies,

Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes:

There held in holy passion still,

Forget thyself to marble, till

With a sad leaden downward cast

Thou fix them on the earth as fast.

And join with thee calm Peace, and Quiet,

Spare Fast, that oft with gods doth diet,

And hears the Muses in a ring

Aye round about Jove's altar sing.

And add to these retired Leisure,

That in trim gardens takes his pleasure;

But first, and chiefest, with thee bring

Him that yon soars on golden wing,

Guiding the fiery-wheeled throne,

The Cherub Contemplation;

And the mute Silence hist along,

'Less Philomel will deign a song,

In her sweetest, saddest plight,

Smoothing the rugged brow of Night,

While Cynthia checks her dragon yoke,

Gently o'er th' accustomed oak;

Sweet bird, that shunn'st the noise of folly,

Most musical, most melancholy!

Thee, chauntress, oft the woods among

I woo, to hear thy even-song;

And missing thee, I walk unseen

On the dry smooth-shaven green,

To behold the wandering Moon

Riding near her highest noon,

Like one that had been led astray

Through the heav'n's wide pathless way;

And oft, as if her head she bowed,

Stooping through a fleecy cloud.

Oft on a plat of rising ground,

I hear the far-off curfew sound,

Over some wide-watered shore,

Swinging slow with sullen roar;

Or if the air will not permit,

Some still removed place will fit,

Where glowing embers through the room

Teach light to counterfeit a gloom;

Far from all resort of mirth,

Save the cricket on the hearth,

Or the bellman's drowsy charm,

To bless the doors from nightly harm:

Or let my lamp at midnight hour

Be seen in some high lonely tow'r,

Where I may oft out-watch the Bear,

With thrice-great Hermes, or unsphere

The spirit of Plato, to unfold

What worlds, or what vast regions hold

The immortal mind, that hath forsook

Her mansion in this fleshly nook:

And of those Demons that are found

In fire, air, flood, or under ground,

Whose power hath a true consent

With planet, or with element.

Sometime let gorgeous Tragedy

In sceptered pall come sweeping by,

Presenting Thebes, or Pelops' line,

Or the tale of Troy divine,

Or what (though rare) of later age

Ennobled hath the buskined stage.

But, O sad Virgin, that thy power

Might raise Musaeus from his bower,

Or bid the soul of Orpheus sing

Such notes as warbled to the string

Drew iron tears down Pluto's cheek,

And made Hell grant what Love did seek.

Or call up him that left half told

The story of Cambuscan bold,

Of Camball, and of Algarsife,

And who had Canace to wife,

That owned the virtuous ring and glass,

And of the wondrous horse of brass

On which the Tartar king did ride;

And if aught else great bards beside

In sage and solemn tunes have sung,

Of turneys and of trophies hung,

Of forests, and enchantments drear,

Where more is meant than meets the ear.

Thus, Night, oft see me in thy pale career,

Till civil-suited Morn appear,

Not tricked and frounced as she was wont

With the Attic Boy to hunt,

But kerchiefed in a comely cloud,

While rocking winds are piping loud,

Or ushered with a shower still,

When the gust hath blown his fill,

Ending on the rustling leaves

With minute drops from off the eaves.

And when the sun begins to fling

His flaring beams, me, Goddess, bring

To arched walks of twilight groves,

And shadows brown that Sylvan loves

Of pine, or monumental oak,

Where the rude axe with heaved stroke

Was never heard the Nymphs to daunt,

Or fright them from their hallowed haunt.

There in close covert by some brook,

Where no profaner eye may look,

Hide me from day's garish eye,

While the bee with honeyed thigh,

That at her flowery work doth sing,

And the waters murmuring

With such consort as they keep,

Entice the dewy-feathered Sleep;

And let some strange mysterious dream

Wave at his wings in airy stream

Of lively portraiture displayed,

Softly on my eyelids laid.

And as I wake, sweet music breathe

Above, about, or underneath,

Sent by some Spirit to mortals good,

Or the unseen Genius of the wood.

But let my due feet never fail

To walk the studious cloister's pale,

And love the high embowed roof,

With antique pillars massy proof,

And storied windows richly dight,

Casting a dim religious light:

There let the pealing organ blow

To the full voiced choir below,

In service high, and anthems clear,

As may with sweetness, through mine ear,

Dissolve me into ecstasies,

And bring all Heav'n before mine eyes.

And may at last my weary age

Find out the peaceful hermitage,

The hairy gown and mossy cell

Where I may sit and rightly spell

Of every star that heav'n doth show,

And every herb that sips the dew;

Till old experience do attain

To something like prophetic strain.

These pleasures, Melancholy, give,

And I with thee will choose to live.