Festival of song: a series of evenings with the poets . lent, which is death to hide, Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent To serve therewith my Maker, and presentMy true account, lest He returning, chide : Doth God exact day-labour, light denied ? I fondly ask : but Patience, to prevent That murmur, soon replies— God doth not need Either mans work, or His own gifts ; who best Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best; His stateIs kingly : thousands at His bidding speed. And post oer land and ocean without rest : They also serve who only stand and wait ! // Penseroso abounds with str
Festival of song: a series of evenings with the poets . lent, which is death to hide, Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent To serve therewith my Maker, and presentMy true account, lest He returning, chide : Doth God exact day-labour, light denied ? I fondly ask : but Patience, to prevent That murmur, soon replies— God doth not need Either mans work, or His own gifts ; who best Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best; His stateIs kingly : thousands at His bidding speed. And post oer land and ocean without rest : They also serve who only stand and wait ! // Penseroso abounds with striking passages ; such as the following,to Contemplation :— Come, pensive nun, devout and pure,Sober, steadfast, and in a robe of darkest with majestic sable state of cypress thy decent shoulders drawn !64 % Come ! but keep thy wonted state,With even step and musing gait,And looks commercing with the skies,Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eves :There, held in holv passion still,Forget thyself to warble, till. With a sad, leaden, downward fix them on the earth as fast:And join with thee calm peace and quiet-Spare fast, that oft with gods doth hears the muses in a ringAye round about Joves altar sing:And add to these retired in trim gardens takes his pleasure ;65 But first and chiefest, with thee bringHim that yon soars on golden wing,Guiding the fairy-wheeled throne,The cherub Contemplation. What pen but Miltons could have produced—from so slight anincident as that which occurred at Ludlow Castle when the poetwas its guest—a dramatic poem I^Comus) so replete with beautifulimagery, and so lustrous with the graces of style ? Here are a fewlines :— Can any mortal mixture of earths mouldBreathe such divine, enchanting ravishment ?Sure something holy lodges in that with these raptures moves the vocal air,To testify his hidden residence :How sweetly did they float upon the wingsOf silence, thr
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1860, booksu, booksubjectenglishpoetry
