What needs my Shakespeare for his honour'd bones
What slender youth, bedew'd with liquid odours
When Faith and Love, which parted from thee never
When I approach

When I behold this goodly frame, this World -
When I consider how my light is spent

Whether thus these things, or whether not
Which of us beholds the bright surface
While I sit with thee, I seem in Heaven
Who aspires must down as low

Who best

Who is there who does not identify the honour "Whom send I to judge them? whom but thee

. . supposest

Who...

Wisdom's self

With dispatchful looks in haste

With tract oblique

Wolves shall succeed for teachers, grievous wolves
Wonderful indeed are all his works -

Ye flaming Powers, and winged Warriors bright
Yet once more, O ye laurels, and once more

April 23

April 17

Dec. 16

"For since from my youth I was devoted to the pursuits of literature, and my mind had always been stronger than my body, I did not court the labours of a camp, in which any common person would have been of more service than myself, but resorted to that employment in which my exertions were likely to be of most avail. Thus, with the better part of my frame I contributed as much as possible to the good of my country, and to the success of the glorious cause in which we were engaged; and I thought that if God willed the success of such glorious achievements, it was equally agreeable to his will that there should be others by whom those achievements should be recorded with dignity and elegance; and that the truth, which had been defended by arms, should also be defended by reason: which is the best and only legitimate means of defending it."-The Second Defence of the People of England.

A DAY BOOK OF MILTON

JANUARY I

ON TIME

FLY, envious Time, till thou run out thy race:

Call on the lazy leaden-stepping Hours,

Whose speed is but the heavy plummet's pace;
And glut thyself with what thy womb devours,
Which is no more than what is false and vain,
And merely mortal dross;

So little is our loss,

So little is thy gain!

For, when as each thing bad thou hast entomb'd,
And, last of all, thy greedy self consumed,

Then long Eternity shall greet our bliss

With an individual kiss,

And Joy shall overtake us as a flood;

When every thing that is sincerely good,

And perfectly divine,

With Truth, and Peace, and Love, shall ever shine

About the supreme throne

Of him, to whose happy-making sight alone

When once our heavenly-guided soul shall climb,

Then, all this earthy grossness quit,

Attired with stars we shall for ever sit,

Triumphing over Death, and Chance, and thee, O Time!

NATURE UNIMPAIRED BY TIME

HOW?-shall the face of nature then be ploughed

Into deep wrinkles, and shall years at last

On the great Parent fix a sterile curse?
Shall even she confess old age, and, halt
And palsy-smitten, shake her starry brows?
Shall foul Antiquity with rust and drought,
And Famine, vex the radiant worlds above?
Shall Time's unsated maw crave and ingulf
The very heavens, that regulate his flight?
And was the Sire of all able to fence

His works, and to uphold the circling worlds,
But, through improvident and heedless haste,
Let slip the occasion?

No. The Almighty Father surer laid
His deep foundations, and, providing well
For the event of all, the scales of Fate
Suspended in just equipoise, and bade
His universal works, from age to age,
One tenor hold, perpetual, undisturbed.

Thou too, thy ancient vegetative power
Enjoy'st, O Earth! Narcissus still is sweet,
And, Phoebus! still thy favourite, and still
Thy favourite, Cytherea! both retain
Their beauty; nor the mountains, ore-enriched
For punishment of man, with purer gold
Teemed ever, or with brighter gems the deep.
Thus, in unbroken series, all proceeds;
And shall, till wide involving either pole,
And the immensity of yonder heaven,
The final flames of destiny absorb

The world, consumed in one enormous pyre!

COWPER'S TRANSLATION

AS yet this world was not, and Chaos wild

Reign'd where these Heavens now roll, where

Earth now rests

Upon her centre poised; when on a day
(For time, though in eternity, applied
To motion, measures all things durable
By present, past, and future), on such day

As Heaven's great year brings forth, the empyreal host

Of Angels, by imperial summons call'd,
Innumerable before the Almighty's throne
Forthwith from all the ends of Heaven appear'd
Under their Hierarchs in orders bright :
Ten thousand thousand ensigns high advanced,
Standards and gonfalons, 'twixt van and rear,
Stream in the air, and for distinction serve
Of Hierarchies, of orders, and degrees;
Or in their glittering tissues bear emblazed
Holy memorials, acts of zeal and love
Recorded eminent. . . . In orbs
Of circuit inexpressible they stood,
Orb within orb.

...

PARADISE LOST, Book V.

"SILENCE, ye troubled waves, and, thou Deep,

peace!

Said then the omnific Word;

66 your discord end!”

Nor stay'd: but, on the wings of Cherubim
Uplifted, in paternal glory rode

Far into Chaos and the World unborn;
For Chaos heard his voice. Him all his train
Follow'd in bright procession, to behold
Creation, and the wonders of his might.
Then stay'd the fervid wheels and in his hand
He took the golden compasses, prepared
In God's eternal store, to circumscribe
This Universe, and all created things.
One foot he centred, and the other turn'd
Round through the vast profundity obscure,
And said, "Thus far extend, thus far thy bounds;
This be thy just circumference O World!"
Thus God the Heaven created, thus the Earth,
Matter unform'd and void. Darkness profound
Cover'd the Abyss; but on the watery calm
His brooding wings the Spirit of God outspread,
And vital virtue infused, and vital warmth,
Throughout the fluid mass, but downward purged
The black, tartareous, cold, infernal dregs,
Adverse to life, then founded, then conglobed
Like things to like, the rest to several place
Disparted, and between spun out the air,
And Earth, self-balanced, on her centre hung.

Raphael to Adam, PARADISE LOST, BOOK VII.