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With Truth, and Peace, and Love, shall ever shine

About the supreme throne

Of him, to whose happy-making sight alone

When once our heavenly-guided soul shall climb;

Then, all this earthy grossness quit,

Attired with stars, we shall for ever sit,

Triumphing over Death, and Chance, and thee, O Time*.

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AT A SOLEMN MUSICK.

BLEST pair of Sirens, pledges of Heaven's joy;
Sphere-born harmonious sisters, Voice and Verse;
Wed your divine sounds, and mix'd power employ
Dead things with imbreathed sense able to pierce ;
And to our high-raised phantasy present
That undisturbed song of pure concent',

i In Milton's manuscript, written with his own hand, fol. 8, the title is, “On Time. To be set on a clock-case."-T. WARTON.

Individual.

Eternal, inseparable. As in “Paradise Lost,” b. iv. 485, b. v. 610.—T. WARTON.

5

Milton could not help applying the most solemn and mysterious truths of religion on all subjects and occasions. He has here introduced the beatific vision, and the investiture of the soul with a robe of stars, into an inscription on a clock-case. Perhaps something more moral, more plain and intelligible, would have been more proper. John Bunyan, if capable of rhyming, would have written such an inscription for a clock-case. The latter part of these lines may be thought wonderfully sublime; but it is in the cant of the times. The poet should be distinguished from the enthusiast.-T. WARTON.

Yet still, I think, Milton is here no enthusiast: the triumph, which he mentions, will certainly be the triumph of every sincere Christian.-TODD.

1 That undisturbed song of pure concent, &c.

The undisturbed song of pure concent" is the diapason of the music of the spheres, to which, in Plato's system, God himself listens.-T. WARTON.

678

Which careful Jove in Nature's true behoof
Took up, and in fit place did reinstall?
Or did of late Earth's sons besiege the wall

Of sheeny Heaven, and thou some goddess fled,
Amongst us here below to hide thy nectar'd head?

Or wert thou that just maid, who once before
Forsook the hated earth, O, tell me sooth,
And camest again to visit us once more?
Or wert thou that sweet-smiling youth?

Or that crown'd matron sage, white-robed Truth?
Or any other of that heavenly brood,

Let down in cloudy throne to do the world some good?

Or wert thou of the golden-winged host,
Who, having clad thyself in human weed,
To earth from thy prefixed seat didst post,
And after short abode fly back with speed,
As if to show what creatures heaven doth breed ;
Thereby to set the hearts of men on fire

To scorn the sordid world, and unto heaven aspire ?

But, O! why didst thou not stay here below
To bless us with thy Heaven-loved innocence,
To slake his wrath whom sin hath made our foe,
To turn swift-rushing black Perdition hence,
Or drive away the slaughtering Pestilence",

To stand 'twixt us and our deserved smart?

But thou canst best perform that office where thou art.

Then thou, the mother of so sweet a child,
Her false-imagined loss cease to lament,
And wisely learn to curb thy sorrows wild :
Think what a present thou to God hast sent,
And render him with patience what he lent.

This, if thou do, he will an offspring give,

That, till the world's last end shall make thy name to live.

h To turn swift-rushing black Perdition hence,

Or drive away the slaughtering Pestilence.

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Among the blessings, which the "heaven-loved" innocence of this child might have imparted, by remaining upon earth, the application to present circumstances, the supposition that she might have averted the pestilence now raging in the kingdom, is happily and beantifully conceived. On the whole, from a boy of seventeen, this Ode is an extraordinary effort of fancy, expression, and versification: even in the conceits, which are many, we perceive strong and peculiar marks of genius. I think Milton has here given a very remarkable specimen of his ability to succeed in the Spenserian stanza. He moves with great ease and address amidst the embarrassment of a frequent return of rhyme.T. WARTON.

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When every thing that is sincerely good

And perfectly divine,

With Truth, and Peace, and Love, shall ever shine

About the supreme throne

Of him, to whose happy-making sight alone

When once our heavenly-guided soul shall climb;

Then, all this earthy grossness quit,

Attired with stars, we shall for ever sit,

Triumphing over Death, and Chance, and thee, O Time".

5

10

13

20

AT A SOLEMN MUSICK.

BLEST pair of Sirens, pledges of Heaven's joy;
Sphere-born harmonious sisters, Voice and Verse;
Wed your divine sounds, and mix'd power employ
Dead things with imbreathed sense able to pierce ;
And to our high-raised phantasy present
That undisturbed song of pure concent',

In Milton's manuscript, written with his own hand, fol. 8, the title is, " On Time. Το be set on a clock-case."-T. WARTON.

Individual.

5

Eternal, inseparable. As in "Paradise Lost," b. iv. 485, b. v. 610.-T. WARTON. * Milton could not help applying the most solemn and mysterious truths of religion on all subjects and occasions. He has here introduced the beatific vision, and the investiture of the soul with a robe of stars, into an inscription on a clock-case. Perhaps something more moral, more plain and intelligible, would have been more proper. John Bunyan, if capable of rhyming, would have written such an inscription for a clock-case. The latter part of these lines may be thought wonderfully sublime; but it is in the cant of the times. The poet should be distinguished from the enthusiast.-T. WARTON.

Yet still, I think, Milton is here no enthusiast: the triumph, which he mentions, will certainly be the triumph of every sincere Christian.-TODD.

The

1 That undisturbed song of pure concent, &c.

undisturbed song of pure concent' is the diapason of the music of the spheres, to which, in Plato's system, God himself listens.-T. WARTON.

Aye sung before the sapphire-colour'd throne
To him that sits thereon,

With saintly shout, and solemn jubilee ;
Where the bright seraphim, in burning row,
Their loud uplifted angel trumpets blow;
And the cherubick host, in thousand quires,
Touch their immortal harps of golden wires,
With those just spirits that wear victorious pali
Hymns devout and holy psalms
Singing everlastingly :

That we on earth", with undiscording voice,
May rightly answer that melodious noise;
As once we did, till disproportion'd sin
Jarr'd against Nature's chime, and with harsh d
Broke the fair musick that all creatures made
To their great Lord, whose love their motion sw
In perfect diapason, whilst they stood
In first obedience, and their state of good.
O, may we soon again renew that song,
And keep in tune with Heaven, till God ere lor
To his celestial concert us unite,

To live with him, and sing in endless morn of li

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AN EPITAPH ON THE MARCHIONESS OF WIN

THIS rich marble doth inter

The honour'd wife of Winchester,
A viscount's daughter, an earl's heir,
Besides what her virtues fair"

Added to her noble birth,

More than she could own from earth.
Summers three times eight save one
She had told; alas! too soon,
After so short time of breath,
To house with darkness and with death.
Yet had the number of her days
Been as complete as was her praise,
Nature and Fate had had no strife
In giving limit to her life.

m That we on earth, &c.

Perhaps there are no finer lines in Milton, less obscured by conc affected expressions, and less weakened by pompous epithets and i sample style are conveyed some of the noblest ideas of a most sublime de metaphors and allusions suitable to the subject.-T. WARTON. Besides what her virtues fair, &c. b. Howell's entertaining Letters, there is one to this lady, the I decciose of Winchester, dated March 15, 1626. He says, he a abdhat Nature and the Graces exhausted all their treasur mood of female perfection."-T. WARTON.

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