MILTON PART THE FIRST.

It was the Minstrel's merry month of June;

Silent and sultry glow'd the breezeless noon;

Along the flowers the bee went murmuring;

Life in its myriad forms was on the wing;

Play'd on the green leaves with the quiv'ring beam,

Sang from the grove, and sparkled from the stream,

When, where yon beech-tree veil'd the soft'ning ray,

On violet-banks young Milton dreaming lay.

For him the Earth below, the Heaven above,

Doubled each charm in the clear glass of youth;

And the vague spirit of unsettled love

Roved through the visions that precede the truth,

While Poesy's low voice so hymn'd through all

That ev'n the very air was musical.

The sunbeam rested, where it pierced the boughs,

On locks whose gold reflected back the gleaming;

On Thought's fair temple in majestic brows

On Love's bright portal — lips that smiled in dreaming.

Dreams he of Nymph half hid in sparry cave?

Or of his own Sabrina chastely “sitting

Under the glassy cool translucent wave,”

The loose train of her amber tresses knitting?

Or that far shadow, yet but faintly view'd,

Where the Four Rivers take their parent springs,

Which shall come forth from starry solitude,

In the last days of angel-visitings,

When, soaring upward from the nether storm,

The Heaven of Heavens shall earthly guest receive,

And in the long-lost Eden smile thy form,

Fairer than all thy daughters, fairest Eve?

Has the dull Earth a being to compare

With those that haunt that spirit-world — the brain?

Can shapes material vie with forms of air,

Nature with Phantasy?— O question vain!

Lo, by the Dreamer, fresh from heavenly hands,

Youth's dream-inspirer — Virgin Woman stands.

She came, a stranger from the Southern skies,

And careless o'er the cloister'd garden stray'd,

Till, pausing, violets on the bank to cull,

Over the Dreamer bent the Beautiful.

Silent, with lifted hand and lips apart,

Silent she stood, and gazed away her heart.

Like purple Maenad fruits, when down the glade

Shoots the warm sunbeam,— into darksome glow

Light kiss'd the ringlets wreathing brows of snow;

And softer than the rosy hues that flush

Her native heaven, when Tuscan morns arise,

The sweet cheek brighten'd with the sweeter blush,

As virgin love from out delighted eyes

Dawn'd as Aurora dawns.—

Thus look'd the maid,

And still the sleeper dream'd beneath the shade.

Image of Soul and Love! So Psyche crept

To the still chamber where her Eros slept;

While the light gladden'd round his face serene,

As light doth ever,— when Love first is seen.

Felt he the touch of her dark locks descending,

Or with his breath her breathing fused and blending,

That, like a bird we startle from the spray,

Pass'd the light Sleep with sudden wings away?

Sighing he woke, and waking he beheld;

The sigh was silenced, as the look was spell'd;

Look charming look, the love that ever lies

In human hearts, like light'ning in the air,

Flash'd in the moment from those meeting eyes,

And open'd all the Heaven!

O Youth, beware!

For either, light should but forewarn the gaze;

Woe follows love, as darkness doth the blaze!

And their eyes met — one moment and no more;

Moment in time that centred years in feeling.

As when to Thetis, on her cavern'd shore,

Knelt her young King,— he rose, and murmur'd, kneeling.

Low though the murmur, it dissolved the charm

Which had in silence chain'd the modest feet;

And maiden shame and woman's swift alarm

Crimson'd her cheek and in her pulses beat:

She turn'd, and, as a spell that leaves the place

It fill'd with phantom beauty cold and bare,

She fled;— and over disenchanted space

Rush'd back the common air!

Time waned — and thoughts intense, and grave and high,

With sterner truths foreshadow'd Minstrel dreams;

Yet never vanish'd from the Minstrel's eye

That meteor blended with the morning beams.

Time waned, and ripe became the long desire,

Which, nursed in youth, with restless manhood grew

A passion — to behold that heart of Earth,

Yet trembling with the silver Mantuan lyre,

To knightly arms by Tasso tuned anew:—

So the fair Pilgrim left his father's hearth.

Into his soul he drunk the lofty lore,

Floating like air around the clime of song;

Beheld the starry sage, what time he bore

For truth's dear glory the immortal wrong;

Communed majestic with majestic minds;

And all the glorious wanderer heard or saw

Or felt or learn'd or dream'd, were as the winds

That swell'd the sails of his triumphant soul;

As then, ev'n then, with ardour yet in awe,

It swept Time's ocean to its distant goal.

It was the evening — and a group were strewn

O'er such a spot as ye, I ween, might see,

When basking in the summer's breathless noon,

With upward face beneath the drowsy tree;

While golden dreams the willing soul receives,

And Elf-land glimmers through the checkering leaves.

It was the evening — still it lay, and fair,

Lapp'd in the quiet of the lulling air;

Still, but how happy! like a living thing

All love itself — all love around it seeing;

And drinking from the earth, as from a spring,

The hush'd delight and essence of its being.

And round the spot ( a wall of glossy shade )

The interlaced and bowering trees reposed;

And through the world of foliage had been made

Green lanes and vistas, which at length were closed

By fount, or fane, or statue white and hoar,

Startling the heart with the fond dreams of yore.

And near, half-glancing through its veil of leaves,

An antique temple stood in marble grace;

Where still, if fondly wise, the heart conceives

Faith in the lingering Genius of the Place:

Seen wandering yet perchance at earliest dawn

Or greyest eve — with Nymph or bearded Faun.

Dainty with mosses was the grass you press'd,

Through which the harmless lizard glancing crept.

And — wearied infants on Earth's gentle breast —

In every nook the little field-flowers slept.

But ever when the soft air draws its breath

( Breeze is a word too rude ), with half-heard sigh,

From orange-shrubs and myrtles — wandereth

The Grove's sweet Dryad borne in fragrance by.

And aye athwart the alleys fitfully

Glanced the fond moth enamour'd of the star;

And aye, from out her watch-tower in the tree,

The music which a falling leaf might mar,

So faint — so faery seem'd it — of the bird

Transform'd at Daulis thrillingly was heard.

And in the centre of that spot, which lay

A ring embosom'd in the wood's embrace,

A fountain, clear as ever glass'd the day,

Breathed yet a fresher luxury round the place;

But now it slept, as if its silver shower,

And the wide reach of its aspiring sound,

Were far too harsh for that transparent hour:—

Yet — like a gnome that mourneth underground —

You caught the murmur of the rill which gave

The well's smooth calm the passion of its wave;

Ev'n as man's heart that still, with secret sigh,

Stirs through each thought that would reflect the sky.

And, group'd around the fountain, forms were seen,

Shaped as for courts in loving Chivalry,

Such as Boccacio placed,‘ mid alleys green,

Listening to tales in careless Fiesole!

Dress'd as for nymphs, the classic banquet there

Was spread on grassy turfs, with coolest fruit

And drinks Falernian — while the mellow air

Heaved to the light swell of the amorous lute;

And by the music lovers grew more bold,

And Beauty blush'd to secrets, murmuring told.

But‘ mid that graceful meeting, there were none

Who yielded not to him — that English guest.

Nor by sweet lips, half wooing to be won,

Were words that thrill and smiles that sigh suppress'd;

And fair with lofty brow, and locks of gold,

And manhood stately with a Dorian grace,

He seem'd like some young Spartan, when of old

The simple sons of thoughtful Hercules

On Elis stood, and look'd the lords of Greece.

Oh! little dream'd those flatterers as they gazed

On him — the radiant cynosure of all,

While on their eyes his youth's fresh glory blazed,

What that bright heart was destined to befall!

That worst of wars — the Battle of the Soil —

Which leaves but Crime unscath'd on either side!

The daily fever, and the midnight toil;

The hope defeated, and the name belied;

Wrath's fierce attack, and Slander's slower art,

The watchful viper of the evil tongue;—

The sting which pride defies, but not the heart —

The noblest heart is aye the easiest wrung:

The flowers, the fruit, the summer of rich life,

Cast on the sands and weariest paths of earth;

The march — but not the action — of the strife

Without;— and Sorrow coil'd around his hearth:

The film, the veil, the shadow, and the night,

Along those eyes which now in all survey

A tribute and a rapture;— the despite

Of Fortune wreak'd on his declining day;

The clouds slow-labouring upward round his heart;—

Oh! little dream'd they this!— nor less what light

Should through those clouds — a new-born glory — start;

And from the spot man's mystic Father trod,

Circling the round Earth with a solemn ray,

Cast its great shadow to the Throne of God!

The festive rite was o'er — the group was gone,

Yet still our wanderer linger'd there alone —

For round his eye, and in his heart, there lay

The tender spells which cleave to solitude.

Who, when some gay delight hath pass'd away,

Feels not a charmed musing in his mood,

A poesy of thought, which yearns to pour

Still worship to the Spirit of the Hour?

Ah! they who bodied into deity

The rosy Hours, I ween, did scarcely err.

Sweet hours, ye have a life, and holily

That life is worn! and when no rude sounds stir

The quiet of our hearts — we inly hear

The hymnlike music of your floating voices,

Telling us mystic tidings of the sphere

Where hand in hand your linked choir rejoices,

And filling us with calm and solemn thought,

Diviner far than all our earth-born lore hath taught.

With folded arms and upward brow, he leant

Against the pillar of a sleeping tree;

When, hark! the still boughs rustled, and there went

A murmur and a sigh along the air,

And a light footstep, like a melody,

Pass'd by the flowers. He turn'd;— What Nymph is there?

What Hamadryad from the green recess

Emerging into beauty like a star?—

He gazed — sweet Heaven!‘ tis she whose loveliness

Had in his England's gardens first ( and far

From these delicious groves ) upon him beam'd,

And look'd to life the wonders he had dream'd.

They met again and oft! what time the Star

Of Hesperus hung his rosy lamp on high;

Love's earliest beacon, from our storms afar,

Lit in the loneliest watch-tower of the sky,

Perchance by souls that, ere this world was made,

Were the first lovers the first stars survey'd.

And Mystery o'er their twilight meeting threw

The charm that nought like mystery doth bestow:

Her name — her birth — her home he never knew;

And she — his love was all she sought to know.

And when in anxious or in tender mood

He pray'd her to disclose at least her name,

A look from her the unwelcome prayer subdued

So sad the cloud that o'er her features came:

Her lip grew blanch'd, as with an ominous fear,

And all her heart seem'd trembling in her tear.

So worshipp'd he in silence and sweet wonder,

Pleased to confide, contented not to know;

And Hope, life's checkering moonlight, smiled asunder

Doubts, which, like clouds, rise ever from below.

And thus his love grew daily, and perchance

Was all the stronger circled by romance.

He found a name for her, if not her own,

Haply as soft, and to her heart as dear —

“Zoe” — name stolen from the tuneful Greek,

It meaneth‘ life,’ when common lips do speak —

And more on those that love;— sweet language known

To lovers, sacred to themselves alone;

Words, like Egyptian symbols, set apart

For the mysterious Priesthood of the Heart.

Creep slowly on, O charm'd reluctant Time —

Rarely so hallow'd, Time, creep slowly on —

Ev'n I would linger in my truant rhyme,

Nor tell too soon how soon those hours were gone.

Flowers bloom again — leaves glad once more the tree —

Poor life, there comes no second Spring to thee!