There let Hymen oft appear Such as the meeting soul may pierce, The hidden soul of harmony; That Orpheus' self may heave his head Of heap'd Elysian flowers, and hear Such strains as would have won the ear His half-regain'd Eurydice. These delights if thou canst give, Mirth, with thee I mean to live. 152 IL PENSEROSO. HENCE, vain deluding Joys, The brood of Folly without father bred! Or fill the fixed mind with all your toys! And fancies fond with gaudy shapes possess, As thick and numberless As the gay motes that people the sun-beams ; Or likest hovering dreams, The fickle pensioners of Morpheus' train. But hail, thou Goddess, sage and holy, Hail, divinest Melancholy! Whose saintly visage is too bright To hit the sense of human sight, 2 And therefore to our weaker view O'erlaid with black, staid Wisdom's hue; Prince Memnon's sister might beseem, The Sea-Nymphs, and their powers offended: Thee bright-hair'd Vesta, long of yore, His daughter she; in Saturn's reign, |