There I can sit, and sing, and weep, There sorrow, for his sake, is found There no presumptuous thoughts abound, A Saviour doubles all my joys, I fear no ill, resent no wrong; Nor feel a passion move, When malice whets her slanderous tongue; Such patience is in love. SCENES FAVORABLE TO MEDITATION. WILDS horrid and dark with o'ershadowing trees, Rocks that ivy and briers infold, Scenes nature with dread and astonishment sees, Though awfully silent, and shaggy, and rude, I am sick of thy splendor, O fountain of day, Ye forests, that yield me my sweetest repose, To you I securely and boldly disclose Here, sweetly forgetting and wholly forgot Here, wandering in scenes that are sacred to night, And often the sun has spent much of his light Ere yet I perceive it is day. While a mantle of darkness envelops the sphere To me the dark hours are all equally dear, Here I and the beasts of the deserts agree, Though little is found in this dreary abode My spirit is soothed by the presence of God, Ye desolate scenes, to your solitude led, My life I in praises employ, [shed And scarce know the source of the tears that I Proceed they from sorrow or joy. There's nothing I seem to have skill to discern, I feel out my way in the dark, Love reigns in my bosom, I constantly burn, I live, yet I seem to myself to be dead, I am nourish'd without knowing how I am fed, I have nothing, and yet I abound. Oh love! who in darkness art pleased to abide, Though dimly, yet surely I see That these contrarieties only reside In the soul that is chosen of thee. Ah! send me not back to the race of mankind, Perversely by folly beguiled, For where, in the crowds I have left, shall I find The spirit and heart of a child? Here let me, though fix'd in a desert, be free; A little one whom they despise, Though lost to the world, if in union with thee, Shall be holy, and happy, and wise. TRANSLATIONS OF THE LATIN AND ITALIAN POEMS OF MILTON. ELEGY I. TO CHARLES DEODATI. AT length, my friend, the far-sent letters come, Charged with thy kindness, to their destined home; They come, at length, from Deva's Western side, I well content, where Thames with influent tide To reedy Cam, and my forbidden cell. I would that, exiled to the Pontic shore, And, Virgil! thou hadst won but second praise: The winding theatre's majestic sweep; Or some coif'd brooder o'er a ten years' cause, I gaze, and grieve, still cherishing my grief. At times, e'en bitter tears yield sweet relief, As, when from bliss untasted torn away, Some youth dies, hapless, on his bridal day; Or when the ghost, sent back from shades below, Fills the assassin's heart with vengeful woe; When Troy, or Argos, the dire scene affords, Or Creon's hall laments its guilty lords. Nor always city-pent, or pent at home, I dwell; but, when spring calls me forth to roam, Expatiate in our proud suburban shades |