"How hard the task! How rare the godlike rage!"
Cf. also the use of the Latin rabies for the "divine afflatus," as in Æneid, vi. 49.
[53.] Full many a gem, etc. Cf. Bishop Hall, Contemplations: "There is many a rich stone laid up in the bowells of the earth, many a fair pearle in the bosome of the sea, that never was seene, nor never shall bee."
Purest ray serene. As Hales remarks, this is a favourite arrangement of epithets with Milton. Cf. Hymn on Nativity: "flower-inwoven tresses torn;" Comus: "beckoning shadows dire;" "every alley green," etc.; L'Allegro: "native wood-notes wild;" Lycidas: "sad occasion dear;" "blest kingdoms meek," etc.
[55.] Full many a flower, etc. Cf. Pope, Rape of the Lock, iv. 158:
"Like roses that in deserts bloom and die."
Mitford cites Chamberlayne, Pharonida, ii. 4:
| "Like beauteous flowers which vainly waste their scent Of odours in unhaunted deserts;" |
and Young, Univ. Pass. sat. v.:
| "In distant wilds, by human eyes unseen, She rears her flowers, and spreads her velvet green; Pure gurgling rills the lonely desert trace, And waste their music on the savage race;" |