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], 5
Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings,
And the night-raven sings;
There, under ebon shades and low-browed rocks,
As ragged as thy locks,
[In dark Cimmerian desert] ever dwell. 10
But come, thou Goddess fair and free,
In heaven [yclept] Euphrosyne,
And by men heart-easing Mirth;
Whom lovely Venus, at a birth,
With [two sister Graces more], 15
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, 20
There, on beds of violets blue,
And fresh-blown roses washed in dew,
Filled her with thee, a daughter fair,
[So buxom, blithe, and debonair].
[Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee] 25
[Quips and Cranks and wanton Wiles],
Nods and Becks and wreathed [Smiles],
Such as hang on Hebe’s cheek,
And love to live in dimple sleek; 30
Sport that wrinkled Care derides,
And Laughter holding both his sides.
Come, and [trip it, as you go],
On the light fantastic toe;
And in thy right hand lead with thee 35
The mountain-nymph, sweet Liberty;
And, if I give thee honor due,
Mirth, admit me of thy crew,
To live with her, and live with thee,
In unreproved pleasures free; 40
[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], 45
And at my window bid good-morrow,
Through the sweet-briar or the vine,
Or the twisted eglantine;
While the cock, with lively din,
Scatters the rear of darkness thin; 50
And to the stack, or the barn-door,
Stoutly struts his dames before:
[Oft listening how the hounds and horn]
Cheerly rouse the slumbering morn,
From the side of some hoar hill, 55
Through the high wood echoing shrill:
[Sometime walking, not unseen],
By hedgerow elms, on hillocks green,
Right [against] the eastern gate
Where the great Sun begins his state, 60
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, 65
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 landskip] round it measures: 70
[Russet lawns], and fallows gray,
Where the nibbling flocks do stray;
Mountains on whose barren breast
The laboring clouds do often rest;
Meadows trim, with daisies pied; 75
Shallow brooks, and rivers wide;
Towers and battlements [it] sees
Bosomed high in tufted trees,
Where perhaps some beauty lies,
[The cynosure of neighboring eyes]. 80
[Hard by a cottage chimney smokes]
From betwixt two aged oaks,
[Where Corydon and Thyrsis met]
Are at their savory dinner set
Of herbs and other country messes, 85
Which the neat-handed Phyllis 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. 90
[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 95
Dancing [in the chequered shade],
And young and old come forth to play
On a sunshine holiday,
[Till the livelong daylight fail]:
Then to the spicy nut-brown ale, 100
With stories told of many a feat,
How [Faery Mab] the junkets eat.
[She] was pinched and pulled, she said;
And he, by Friar’s lantern led,
[Tells] how the drudging goblin sweat 105
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-laborers [could not end];
Then lies him down, [the lubber fiend], 110
And, stretched out all the chimney’s length,
Basks at the fire his hairy strength,
And crop-full out of doors he flings,
Ere the first cock his matin rings.
[Thus done the tales], to bed they creep, 115
By whispering winds soon lulled asleep.
[Towered cities please us then],
And the busy hum of men,
Where throngs of knights and barons bold,
[In weeds of peace, high triumphs hold], 120
With store of ladies, whose bright eyes
[Rain influence], and judge the prize
Of wit or arms, while both contend
To win her grace [whom] all commend.
[There let Hymen oft appear] 125
In saffron robe, with taper clear,
And pomp, and feast, and revelry,
With [mask] and antique pageantry;
Such sights as youthful poets dream,
On summer eves by haunted stream. 130
[Then to the well-trod stage anon],
If [Jonson’s learned sock] be on,
[Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy’s child],
Warble his native wood-notes wild,
[And ever, against eating cares], 135
Married to immortal verse,
Such as [the meeting soul] may pierce,
In notes with many a winding [bout]
Of linked sweetness long drawn out 140
With wanton heed and giddy cunning,
The melting voice through mazes running,
Untwisting all the chains that tie
The hidden soul of harmony;
[That Orpheus’ self may heave his head] 145
From golden slumber on a bed
Of heaped Elysian flowers, and hear
Such strains as would have won the ear
Of [Pluto] to have quite set free
His half-regained Eurydice. 150
These delights if thou canst give,
Mirth, with thee I mean to live.