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Nor castle walls, nor dungeons deep,
Exclude his quickening beams;
There I can sit, and sing, and weep,
And dwell on heavenly themes.

There sorrow, for his sake, is found
A joy beyond compare ;

There no presumptuous thoughts abound,
No pride can enter there.

A Saviour doubles all my joys,
And sweetens all my pains,
His strength in my defence employs,
Consoles me and sustains.

I fear no ill, resent no wrong,

Nor feel a passion move,

When malice whets her slanderous tongue;
Such patience is in love.

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,
But I with a pleasure untold;

Though awfully silent, and shaggy, and rude,
I am charmed with the peace ye afford;
Your shades are a temple where none will intrude,
The abode of my Lover and Lord.

I am sick of thy splendour, O fountain of day,
And here I am hid from its beams;

Here safely contemplate a brighter display
Of the noblest and holiest themes.

Ye forests, that yield me my sweetest repose,
Where stillness and solitude reign,

To you I securely and boldly disclose

The dear anguish of which I complain.

Here, sweetly forgetting, and wholly forgot
By the world and its turbulent throng,
The birds and the streams lend me many a note
That aids meditation and song.

Here, wandering in scenes that are sacred to night,
Love wears me and wastes me away;

And often the sun has spent much of his light
Ere yet I perceive it is day.

While a mantle of darkness envelopes the sphere,
My sorrows are safely rehearsed;
To me the dark hours are all equally dear,
And the last is as sweet as the first.

Here I and the beasts of the desert agree;
Mankind are the wolves that I fear:
They grudge me my natural right to be free,
But nobody questions it here.

Though little is found in this dreary abode
That appetite wishes to find,

My spirit is soothed by the presence of God,
And appetite wholly resigned.

Ye desolate scenes, to your solitude led
My life I in praises employ,

And scarce know the source of the tears that I shed,
Proceed they from sorrow or joy.

There's nothing I seem to have skill to discern;
I feel out my way in the dark;

Love reigns in my bosom, I constantly burn
Yet hardly distinguish the spark.

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,
I have nothing, and yet I abound.

O Love! who in darkness art pleased to abide,
Though dimly yet surely I see

That these contrarieties only reside

In the soul that is chosen of thee

Ah send me not back to the race of mankind,
Perversely by folly beguiled:

For where, in the crowds I have left, shall I find
The spirit and heart of a child?

Here let me, though fixed in a desert, be free,
A little one whom they despise,

Though lost to the world, if in union with thee
Shall be holy and happy and wise.

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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
MARQUIS OF VILLA

TO THE ENGLISHMAN, JOHN MILTON

WHAT features, form, mien, manners, with a mind
Oh how intelligent and how refined!

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
THREE LAUREls, the GRECIAN, LATIN, AND ETRUSCAN,
BY JOHN SALSILLO, OF ROME

MELES and Mincio, both, your urns depress!
Sebetus, boast henceforth thy Tasso less!
But let the Thames o'erpeer all floods, since he,
For Milton famed, shall single match the three.

TO JOHN MILTON

GREECE, Sound thy Homer's, Rome, thy Virgil's name,
But England's Milton equals both in fame.

SELVAGGI.

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