And if I give thee honour due, Where, perhaps, some beauty lies, Corydon and Thyrsis met, Are at their savoury dinner set, Which the neat-handed Phillis dresses. Towered cities please us then, Then to the well-trod stage anon, And ever, against eating cares, These delights if thou canst give, IL PENSEROSO. Sweet bird, that shun'st the noise of folly, And if aught else great bards beside So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed, And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore Lycidas. Lines 168-171. To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new. Ibid. Line 193. For evil news rides post, while good news bates. Samson Agonistes. Line 1538. That dishonest victory At Cheronæa, fatal to liberty, Killed with report that old man eloquent.* A thousand fantasies Begin to throng into my memory, Of calling shapes, and beckoning shadows dire, Comus. Lines 204-207. * Isocrates, the celebrated orator of Greece, is here alluded to. His patriotic feelings received so severe a shock on hearing the result of the battle of Cheronæa, that he died broken-hearted, or, as some authors say, of self-starvation. † A glossy bower! Of coolest foliage musical with birds, Sir E. Bulwer Lytton's Lady of Lyons, Act ii. Scene 1. Was I deceived, or did a sable cloud Turn forth her silver lining on the night? Comus. Lines 221, 222 222. Avenge, O Lord! thy slaughtered saints, whose bones Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold; When all our fathers worshipped stocks and stones Forget not. Sonnet 18.* Rivers, arise! whether thou be the son Of utmost Tweed, or Ouse, or gulfy Dun. Poem 2. What needs my Shakspere for his honoured bones? Thou in our wonder and astonishment Hast built thyself a livelong monument. Ibid. On Shakspere. *These noble lines, from the sonnet entitled "On the late Massacre in Piedmont," which was written in 1655, have obtained great and deserved celebrity. It is satisfactory to know, that the poet did not write in vain in thus calling attention to the sufferings of the persecuted Protestants of the Piedmontese mountains and valleys. My banks they are furnish'd with bees, My grottoes are shaded with trees, A Pastoral. Part 2. I have found out a gift for my fair: I have found where the wood-pigeons breed ; But let me that plunder forbear, She will say 't was a barbarous deed; For he ne'er could be true, she averr'd, a poor Who could rob bird of its young; And I loved her the more when I heard Such tenderness fall from her tongue. Ibid. Ye shepherds! give ear to my lay, I have nothing to do but to weep. |