This second Song presents them to their Father and Mother.

Noble lord, and lady bright,

I have brought ye new delight;

Here behold so goodly grown

Three fair branches of your own;

Heaven hath timely tried their youth,

970

Their faith, their patience, and their truth;

And sent them here, through hard assays,
With a crown of deathless praise,

To triumph in victorious dance

O'er sensual folly and intemperance.

The Dances being ended, THE SPIRIT epiloguizes.

Spir. 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

975

980

Revels the spruce and jocund Spring;

985

The Graces and the rosy-bosomed Hours
Thither all their bounties bring;

There eternal Summer dwells,
And west-winds, with musky wing,
About the cedarn alleys fling

979. Broad fields, &c.] Compare . 4. Virgil has Aëris in campis latis.' En. vi. 888.

981. All.] Adverbial to the preposition phrase following. 984. Crisped.] With curled leaves.

990

990. Cedarn alleys.] So in Fuller's Holy and Profane State, i. 5: Sallats are made of eldern buds.' The final n or en, in such words as oaken, golden, leathern, is probably the old genitive suffix, denoting of.

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 shew;.
And drenches with Elysian dew
(List, mortals, if your ears be true,)
Beds of hyacinth and roses,
Adonis oft reposes,

Where

young

Waxing well of his deep wound

995

X

1000

993. Blow.] Here employed causatively, like descry in l. 141. 995. Purfled.] Embroidered. From the Fr. pourfiler. So in Spenser's F. Q.

A goodly lady, clothed in scarlet red,
Purfled with gold and pearl of rich
I. ii. 13.

assay.

997. If your ears be true.] The spirit here proceeding to refer to the love of Venus and Adonis, wishes to be listened to with chaste ears.

1000. Waxing well, &c.] The beautiful youth Adonis, while hunting in Lebanon, was wounded to death by a boar, and was much lamented by the goddess Venus. He was supposed to be annually wounded, and again restored to life, and had therefore two com

1005

memoration days, one of lamentation followed by one of rejoicing, The 'gardens feigned of revived Adonis' (Par. Lost, ix. 439) were celebrated for their beauty and fruitfulness;

Thy promises are like Adonis' gardens, That one day bloomed, and fruitful were the next.

Shaksp. 1 King Henry VI. i. 6. Milton calls Venus the Assyrian Queen, because she was first worshipped in Assyria.

1004. Advanced.] A participle: Cupid advanced far above, &c.

1005. Psyche.] The beautiful Psyche, after many severe trials imposed on her by Venus, who for a long time disapproved the attachment that had been formed between Cupid and Psyche, was at last received into favour by the

ch his alces purpiled attehond up and that the finest of a lond

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,

1010

L

L'ALLEGRO,

OR

THE MERRY MAN.