So on he fares; and to the border comes
Of Eden, where delicious Paradise,
Now nearer, crowns, with her enclosure green,
As with a rural mound, the champaign head
Of a steep wilderness, whose hairy sides,
With thicket overgrown, grotesque and wild,
Access denied; and overhead up grew
Insuperable height of loftiest shade,
Cedar, and pine, and fir, and branching palm,—
A sylvan scene; and, as the ranks ascend,
Shade above shade, a woody theatre
Of stateliest view. Yet higher than their tops
The verd'rous wall of Paradise up sprung;
Which to our general sire gave prospect large
Into his nether empire neighbouring round:
And, higher than that wall, a circling row
Of goodliest trees, laden with fairest fruit,
Blossoms and fruits, at once, of golden hue,
Appeared, with gay enamelled colours mixed;
On which the Sun more glad impressed his beams
Than in fair evening cloud, or humid bow,
When God hath showered the earth; so lovely seemed
That landscape: and of pure, now purer air
Meets his approach, and to the heart inspires
Vernal delight and joy, able to drive
All sadness but despair: now gentle gales,
Fanning their odoriferous wings, dispense
Native perfumes, and whisper whence they stole
Those balmy spoils;—as when, to them who sail
Beyond the Cape of Hope, and now are past
Mozambique, off at sea north-east winds blow
Sabean odours from the spicy shore
Of Araby the blest; with such delay
Well pleased they slack their course; and, many a league,
Cheered with the grateful smell, old Ocean smiles.
Milton.
* * * * *
LOVE IN IDLENESS.
OBE. Well, go thy way; thou shalt not from this grove,
Till I torment thee for this injury.
My gentle Puck, come hither: Thou remember'st
Since once I sat upon a promontory,
And heard a mermaid, on a dolphin's back,
Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath,
That the rude sea grew civil at her song;
And certain stars shot madly from their spheres,
To hear the sea-maid's music.
PUCK. I remember.
OBE. That very time I saw (but thou could'st not),
Flying between the cold moon and the earth,
Cupid, all armed: a certain aim he took
At a fair vestal, throned by the west;
And loos'd his love-shaft smartly from his bow,
As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts;
But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft
Quench'd in the chaste beams of the watery moon;
And the imperial votaress passed on,
In maiden meditation, fancy-free.
Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell:
It fell upon a little western flower,—
Before, milk-white, now purple with love's wound,—
And maidens call it love-in-idleness.
Fetch me that flower; the herb I show'd thee once;
The juice of it on sleeping eyelids laid,
Will make or man or woman madly dote
Upon the next live creature that it sees.
Fetch me this herb: and be thou here again,
Ere the leviathan can swim a league.
PUCK. I'll put a girdle round about the earth
In forty minutes.
Shakespeare.
* * * * *