Russet lawns and fallows 1
gray,
Where the nibbling flocks do stray,
Mountains on whose barren breast
The laboring clouds do often rest,
Meadows trim with daisies pied,2
Shallow brooks, and rivers wide.
Towers and battlements it sees
Bosomed high in tufted trees,
Where perhaps some beauty lies,*
The cynosure of neighboring eyes.
Hard by, a cottage chimney smokes
From betwixt two agéd oaks,
Where Corydon and Thyrsis met
Are at their savory dinner set

3

Of herbs and other country messes,7
Which the neat-handed Phyllis dresses;
And then in haste her bower 8 she leaves,
With Thestylis to bind the sheaves,
Or, if the earlier season lead,

To the tanned haycock in the mead.
Sometimes with secure delight

The upland hamlets will invite,
When the merry bells ring round,

1 fallows. Meaning? here means light brown. 2 pied, of varied color.

"Gray

8 Bosomed. What is the exact meaning of this word here? 4 lies, resides, dwells.

5 cynosure, a center of attraction. For its derivation, see Glossary.

peasants the names of Virgilian swains and shepherdesses. "Corydon," "Thyrsis," "Phyllis," "Thestylis," occur in the idyls of Virgil and other Latin poets.

6 Corydon and Thyrsis. Milton's classical fancy gives to English | sary.

And the jocund rebecs1 sound

To many a youth and many a maid,
Dancing in the checkered shade;

And young and old come forth to play
On a sunshine holiday,

Till the livelong daylight fail;
Then to the spicy nut-brown ale,2
With stories told of many a feat:
How fairy Mab3 the junkets1 eat;

5

She was pinched and pulled, she said;
And he,5 by friar's lantern led;
Tells how the drudging goblin sweat
To earn his cream-bowl duly set,
When in one night, ere glimpse of morn,
His shadowy flail hath threshed the corn
That ten day-laborers could not end;
Then lies him down the lubbar fiend,
And, stretched out all the chimney's 10 length,
Basks at the fire his hairy strength;
And crop-full 11 out of doors he flings,12

7 Tells. Supply he as subject.

1 rebec, a fiddle of three strings. 2 spicy nut-brown ale (the same 8 the drudging goblin is the as Shakespeare's "gossips' bowl"), Robin Goodfellow of British folka beverage consisting of ale, nut-lore, a "servant spirit that would meg, sugar, toast, and the pulp of grind corn for a mess of milk, cut roasted apples.

3 Mab, the queen of the fairies. 4 junkets, cream-cheese, and other dainties.

5 She... he, some of the storytellers.

6 friar's lantern, meaning the sprite known as Jack-o'-the-lantern, or Will-o'-the-wisp.

wood, or do any kind of drudgery work."

9 lubbar lubber, clumsy, awkward.

10 chimney, fireplace, very ample in the olden times.

11 crop-full, stomach-full.

12 flings, throws himself, rushes (a classical construction).

Ere the first cock his matin rings.1
Thus done the tales, to bed they creep,
By whispering winds soon lulled asleep.
Towered cities please us then,

And the busy hum of men,

Where throng of knights and barons bold,
In weeds 2 of peace, high triumphs3 hold,
With store of ladies, whose bright eyes
Rain influence, and judge the prize
Of wit or arms, while both contend
To win her grace whom all commend.
There let Hymen oft appear

In saffron robe, with taper clear,
And pomp, and feast, and revelry,
With mask and antique pageantry;
Such sights as youthful poets dream
On summer eves by haunted stream.
Then to the well-trod stage anon,
If Jonson's learnéd sock be on,7

1 his matin rings. Explain. 2 weeds, garments. See Glossary. 8 triumphs, tournaments, and other public pageants.

4 influence. "Here used in its original sense of the rays, glances, or aspects flowing from the stars to the earth. These aspects were believed to have a great and mysterious power over the fortunes of men."

5 Hymen, the god of marriage, who, in the old plays, was represented as clothed in a saffron-colored robe.

Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child,
Warble his native wood-notes wild.
And ever, against eating cares,
Lap me in soft Lydian1 airs,
Married to immortal verse 2-

Such as the meeting soul may pierce
In notes with many a winding bout 3
Of linked sweetness long drawn out
With wanton heed, and giddy cunning,
The melting voice through mazes running,
Untwisting all the chains that tie

The hidden soul of harmony;

That Orpheus'5 self may heave his head
From golden slumber on a bed

Of heaped Elysian flowers, and hear

Such strains as would have won the ear

Of Pluto to have quite set free
His half-regained Eurydice.5
These delights if thou canst give,
Mirth, with thee I mean to live.

1 Lydian, denoting an ancient | and wondrous "cunning" that but Greek mode of music remarkable appears "giddy."

for its tender softness.

5 Orpheus'... Eurydice. Or

2 Married... verse. 8 bout, musical passage. 4 wanton ... cunning. There to move inanimate objects. His is an apparent contradiction be- wife Eurydice having died, he foltween " wanton " (free, sportive) | lowed her into the infernal region, and "heed;""; 'giddy" and "cun- where the god Pluto was so moved ning" (skill); but the meaning is by the music, that Orpheus almost

Explain.pheus, son of Apollo, who, with the music of his lyre, had the power

a heed" (that is, a care, an art) succeeded in carrying her back to that only seems to be "wanton," | earth.

2.-SATAN AND BEELZEBUB.

[The following two hundred and eighty-six lines are from the First Book of Paradise Lost, and come almost immediately after the opening, or invocation,

The inquiry is then put, as to what moved our first parents to disobey; and answer is made, that it was the seductions of "the serpent, or, rather, Satan in the person of the serpent," -Satan, whose pride had caused him to be cast out of heaven, with all his rebel angels. Then follow the magnificent speeches in which the interlocutors are the "arch-enemy" Satan, and his "bold compeer" Beelzebub.]

Him1 the Almighty Power

Hurled headlong flaming from the ethereal sky,
With hideous ruin and combustion, down
To bottomless perdition; there to dwell
In adamantine2 chains and penal3 fire,
Who durst defy the Omnipotent to arms.5

Nine times the space that measures day and night To mortal men, he with his horrid crew

Lay vanquished, rolling in the fiery gulf, Confounded, though immortal. But his doom Reserved him to more wrath; for now the thought Both of lost happiness and lasting pain,