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By Thetis' tinsel-slipper'd feet,
And the songs of Sirens sweet;
By dead Parthenope's dear tomb,
And fair Ligea's golden comb,
Wherewith she sits on diamond rocks,
Sleeking her soft alluring locks;
By all the nymphs that nightly dance
Upon thy streams, with wily glance;
Rise, rise, and heave thy rosy head
From thy coral-paven bed,

And bridle in thy headlong wave
Till thou our summons answer'd have.
Listen and save.

The dances ended, the Spirit epiloguises.

Spirit. To the ocean now I fly,
And those happy climes that lie
Where Day never shuts his eye,
Up in the broad fields of the sky:
There I suck the liquid air,
All amidst the gardens fair

Of Hesperus and his daughters three,
That sing about the golden tree:
Along the crisped shades and bowers
Revels the spruce and jocund spring;
The Graces, and the rosy-bosom'd Hours,
Thither all their bounties bring;
That there eternal Summer dwells,
And west-winds with musky wing
About the cedar'd alleys fling
Nard and cassia's balmy smells.
Iris there with humid bow

Waters the odorous banks, that blow
Flowers of more mingled hue
Than her purfled scarf can show,
And drenches with Elysian dew
(List, mortals, if your ears be true)
Beds of hyacinth and roses,
Where young Adonis oft reposes,
Waxing well of his deep wound
In slumber soft, and on the ground
Sadly sits th' Assyrian queen;
But far above, in spangled sheen,
Celestial Cupid, her famed son, advanced,
Holds his dear Psyche sweet intranced,
After her wand'ring labours long,

Till free consent the gods among
Make her his eternal bride,

And from her fair unspotted side
Two blissful twins are to be born,
Youth and Joy; so Jove hath sworn.
But now my task is smoothly done,
I can fly, or I can run

Quickly to the green earth's end,
Where the bow'd welkin slow doth bend,
And from thence can soar as soon
To the corners of the moon.

Mortals that would follow me,
Love Virtue; she alone is free:
She can teach ye how to climb
Higher than the sphery chime;
Or if Virtue feeble were,

Heaven itself would stoop to her.

THE CREATURES OF GOD.

[From Paradise Lost.]

But wherefore all night long shine these? for whom This glorious sight, when sleep hath shut all eyes?

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These have their course to finish round the earth
By morrow evening, and from land to land
In order, though to nations yet unborn,
Minist'ring light prepared, they set and rise;
Lest total darkness should by night regain
Her old possession, and extinguish life
In nature and all things, which these soft fires
Not only enlighten, but with kindly heat
Of various influence, foment and warm,
Temper or nourish, or in part shed down
Their stellar virtue on all kinds that grow
On earth, made hereby apter to receive
Perfection from the sun's more potent ray.
These, then, though unbeheld in deep of night,
Shine not in vain; nor think, though men were none,
That heav'n would want spectators, God want praise.
Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth
Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep:
All these with ceaseless praise His works behold
Both day and night. How often from the steep
Of echoing hill or thicket have we heard

Celestial voices to the midnight air,
Sole or responsive each to other's note,
Singing their great Creator? oft in bands,
While they keep watch, or nightly rounding walk,
With heav'nly touch of instrumental sounds
In full harmonic numbers join'd, their songs
Divide the night, and lift our souls to heaven.

ATHENS.

[From book iv. of Paradise Regained.]

Look once more ere we leave this specular mount,
Westward, much nearer by south-west behold
Where on the Ægean shore a city stands
Built nobly, pure the air and light the soil,
Athens, the eye of Greece, mother of arts
And eloquence, native to famous wits,
Or hospitable in her sweet recess.

City or suburban, studious walks and shades;
See there the olive-grove of Academe,
Plato's retirement, where the Attic bird

Trills her thick-warbled notes the summer long;
There, flowery hill, Hymettus, with the sound
Of bees' industrious murmur, oft invites

To studious musing; there Ilissus rolls

His whispering stream: within the walls then view
The schools of ancient sages; his who bred
Great Alexander to subdue the world,

Lyceum there, and painted Stoa next:

There shalt thou hear and learn the secret power
Of harmony in tones and numbers hit

By voice or hand, and various-measured verse,
Eolian charms, and Dorian lyric odes,

And his who gave them breath, but higher sung,
Blind Melesigenes, thence Homer call'd,
Whose poem Phoebus challenged for his own.
Thence what the lofty grave tragedians taught
In chorus or iambic, teachers best

Of moral prudence with delight received
In brief sententious precepts, while they treat
Of fate, and chance, and change in human life;
High actions and high passions best describing;
Thence to the famous orators repair,
Those ancient, whose resistless eloquence
Wielded at will that fierce democratie,
Shook the arsenal, and fulmined over Greece
To Macedon and Artaxerxes' throne.

SONNET TO THE NIGHTINGALE.

O nightingale, that on yon bloomy spray
Warblest at eve, when all the woods are still,-
Thou with fresh hope the lover's heart dost fill,
While the jolly Hours lead on propitious May.
Thy liquid notes, that close the eye of day,
First heard before the shallow cuckoo's bill,
Portend success in love; O, if Jove's will
Have link'd that amorous power to thy soft lay,
Now timely sing, ere the rude bird of hate
Foretell my hopeless doom in some grove nigh;
As thou from year to year hast sung too late
For my relief, yet hadst no reason why:

Whether the Muse or Love call thee his mate,
Both them I serve, and of their train am I.

SONG ON MAY MORNING.

Now the bright morning Star, day's harbinger,
Comes dancing from the east, and leads with her
The flow'ry May, who from her green lap throws
The yellow cowslip and the pale primrose.
Hail, bounteous May! that dost inspire
Mirth, and youth, and warm desire;
Woods and groves are of thy dressing,
Hill and dale doth boast thy blessing!
Thus we salute thee with our early song,
And welcome thee, and wish thee long.

MARVELL.

ANDREW MARVELL was born at Hull A.D. 1620. He travelled in early life, and was at one time secretary to the English embassy at Constantinople. He was an intimate friend of Milton's, and his assistant when Latin secretary to Cromwell. After the Restoration he represented Hull in Parliament for many years. His integrity as a politician gained for him the respect of all parties. He died A.D. 1678, and was buried at the expense of his native city, which erected also a monument to his memory.

THE EMIGRANTS.

Where the remote Bermudas ride,
In th' ocean's bosom unespied,

From a small boat that row'd along,
The list'ning winds receiv'd this song.

"What should we do, but sing His praise
That led us through the wat'ry maze,
Unto an isle so long unknown,
And yet far kinder than our own!

Where He the huge sea-monsters racks,
That lift the deep upon their backs;
He lands us on a grassy stage,
Safe from the storms and prelates' rage.

He gave us this eternal spring
Which here enamels every thing,
And sends the fowls to us in care,
On daily visits through the air.

He hangs in shades the orange bright,
Like golden lamps in a green night;

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And in these rocks for us did frame
A temple where to sound His name.

O, let our voice His praise exalt
Till it arrive at heaven's vault,
Which then perhaps rebounding may
Echo beyond the Mexique bay.'

Thus sung they in the English boat
A holy and a cheerful note;

And all the way, to guide their chime,
With falling oars they kept the time.

THE NYMPH COMPLAINING FOR THE DEATH OF HER FAWN.

The wanton troopers riding by
Have shot my fawn, and it will die.
Ungentle men! they cannot thrive
Who killed thee. Thou ne'er didst alive
Them any harm; alas! nor could
Thy death to them do any good.
I'm sure I never wish'd them ill;
Nor do I for all this; nor will:
But, if my simple prayers may yet
Prevail with heaven to forget

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