Nor castle walls, nor dungeons deep, There sorrow, for his sake, is found There no presumptuous thoughts abound, A Saviour doubles all my joys, I fear no ill, resent no wrong, Nor feel a passion move, When malice whets her slanderous tongue; SCENES FAVOURABLE TO MEDITATION. WILDS horrid and dark with o'ershadowing trees, Rocks that ivy and briers infold, Scenes Nature with dread and astonishment sees, Though awfully silent, and shaggy, and rude, I am sick of thy splendour, O fountain of day, Here safely contemplate a brighter display Ye forests, that yield me my sweetest repose, To you I securely and boldly disclose The dear anguish of which I complain. Here, sweetly forgetting, and wholly forgot Here, wandering in scenes that are sacred to night, And often the sun has spent much of his light While a mantle of darkness envelopes the sphere, Here I and the beasts of the desert agree; Though little is found in this dreary abode My spirit is soothed by the presence of God, Ye desolate scenes, to your solitude led And scarce know the source of the tears that I shed, There's nothing I seem to have skill to discern; Love reigns in my bosom, I constantly burn I live, yet I seem myself to be dead; Such a riddle is not to be found; I am nourished without knowing how I am fed, O Love! who in darkness art pleased to abide, That these contrarieties only reside In the soul that is chosen of thee Ah send me not back to the race of mankind, For where, in the crowds I have left, shall I find Here let me, though fixed in a desert, be free, Though lost to the world, if in union with thee FROM THE ENGRAVING BY FINDEN AFTER A DRAWING BY W. HARVEY OF THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE COMPLIMENTARY POEMS TO MILTON FROM THE LATIN AND ITALIAN THE NEAPOLITAN, JOHN BAPTIST MANSO TO THE ENGLISHMAN, JOHN MILTON WHAT features, form, mien, manners, with a mind Were but thy piety from fault as free, Thou would'st no Angle but an Angel be. AN EPIGRAM ADDRESSED TO THE ENGLISHMAN, JOHN MILTON, A POET WORTHY OF MELES and Mincio, both, your urns depress! TO JOHN MILTON GREECE, Sound thy Homer's, Rome, thy Virgil's name, SELVAGGI. |