113.-EVE'S ACCOUNT OF HER CREATION.

JOHN MILTON was born in London, December 9, 1608. He was carefully educated by a private tutor, until at the age of twelve he entered Christ Church College, Cambridge. He was a severe student, but of a haughty temper and impatient of constraint. While yet at college he wrote his grand Hymn on the Nativity, any one verse of which was sufficient to show that a great light had risen in English poetry. He graduated in 1632, and afterward pursued his classical studies for five years at his father's house. He wrote a number of political works on subjects then under dispute. His best-known poems are Comus, L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Samson Agonistes, Paradise Regained, and, most famous of all, Paradise Lost, from which the following extracts are taken. His poetry has a power, a sublimity, and a solemnity not to be found in any other author. He died November 8, 1674.

1. I FIRST awaked, and found myself reposed

Under a shade on flowers, much wond'ring where
And what I was, whence thither brought, and how.
Not distant far from thence a murm'ring sound
Of waters issued from a cave, and spread

Into a liquid plain, then stood unmoved,
Pure as the expanse of heaven. I thither went
With inexperienced thought, and laid me down
On the green bank, to look into the clear
Smooth lake that to me seemed another sky.
2. As I bent down to look, just opposite,
A shape within the wat'ry gleam appeared,
Bending to look on me. I started back :
It started back; but, pleased, I soon returned:
Pleased, it returned as soon with answ'ring looks
Of sympathy and love. There I had fixed
Mine eyes till now, and pined with vain desire,
Had not a voice thus warned me: "What thou seest,
What there thou seest, fair creature, is thyself:

With thee it came and goes; but follow me,
And I will bring thee where no shadow stays
Thy coming and thy soft embraces.”

114.-EXPULSION FROM PARADISE.

:

1. "ADAM, heaven's high behest no preface needs
Sufficient that thy prayers are heard, and death,
Then due by sentence when thou didst transgress.
Defeated of his seizure many days,

Given thee of grace, wherein thou may'st repent,
And one bad act with many deeds well done
May'st cover, well may then thy Lord, appeased,
Redeem thee quite from Death's rapacious claim ;
But longer in this Paradise to dwell

Permits not to remove thee I am come,

And send thee from the garden forth, to till
The ground whence thou wast taken, fitter soil."

2. He added not; for Adam at the news

Heart-struck with chilling gripe of sorrow stood,
That all his senses bound. Eve, who unseen
Yet all had heard, with audible lament
Discovered soon the place of her retire:

3. "Oh, unexpected stroke,-worse than of death!
Must I thus leave thee, Paradise, thus leave
Thee, native soil, these happy walks and shades,
Fit haunt of gods, where I had hope to spend,
Quiet, though sad, the respite of that day
That must be mortal to us both? O flowers
That never will in other climate grow,

My early visitation, and my last

At even, which I bred up with tender hand From the first opening bud, and gave ye names, Who now shall rear ye to the sun, or rank

Your tribes, and water from the ambrosial fount?

Thee, lastly, nuptial bower, by me adorned
With what to sight or smell was sweet,-from thee
How shall I part, and whither wander down

Into a lower world, to this obscure

And wild?

How shall we breathe in other air

Less pure, accustomed to immortal fruits?"

JOHN MILTON.

DEFINITIONS.-1. Be hěst', command. Ap peased', satisfied. Ra pă cious, seizing by force. 3. Respite, postponement. Am brō'şial, delicious.

115.-OLD AGE.

EDMUND WALLER was born at Coleshill, England, March 3, 1605. He was educated at Eton, and afterward at King's College, Cambridge. He wrote several volumes of poetry. His poems are graceful and harmonious, sparkling with wit and vivacity, always clear and simple, and sometimes full of dignity. He died at Beaconsfield, October 21, 1687.

1. THE seas are quiet when the winds give o'er :
So calm are we when passions are no more;
For then we know how vain it was to boast
Of fleeting things, too certain to be lost.

2. Clouds of affection from our younger eyes
Conceal that emptiness which age descries:
The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed,
Lets in new light through chinks that time has made.

3. Stronger by weakness, wiser men become

As they draw near to their eternal home;

Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view
That stand upon the threshold of the new.

DEFINITION.—2. De series', perceives.

116. TO THE MEMORY OF SHAKESPEARE.

BEN JONSON was born at Westminster in 1574. He received his education at Westminster School, and by some is said to have passed several months at St. John's College, Cambridge. He wrote numerous plays, the first which gained him any reputation was Every Man in his Humor. His writings are rather pedantic, yet they show great force and a humor which is thoroughly original and is full of sparkle. He was one of the most intimate friends of Shakespeare. He died in 1637, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

1. To draw no envy, Shakespeare, on thy name,

Am I thus ample to thy book and fame,
While I confess thy writings to be such
As neither man nor Muse can praise too much :
'Tis true, and all men's suffrage. But these ways
Were not the paths I meant unto thy praise;
For silliest ignorance on these would light,
Which, when it sounds at best, but echoes right;
Or blind affection, which doth ne'er advance
The truth, but gropes, and urges all by chance,
Or crafty malice, might pretend this praise,
And think to ruin where it seemed to raise.
But thou art proof against them, and, indeed,
Above the ill-fortune of them, or the need.

2. I therefore will begin : Soul of the age,

The applause, delight, the wonder of our stage,
My Shakespeare, rise! I will not lodge thee by
Chaucer or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie
A little further off, to make thee room:
Thou art a monument without a tomb,
And art alive still while thy book doth live,
And we have wits to read and praise to give.

3. Yet must I not give nature all thy art,
My gentle Shakespeare, must enjoy a part.

For, though the poet's matter nature be,
His art doth give thee fashion; and that he
Who casts to write a living line must sweat
(Such as thine are) and strike the second heat
Upon the Muses' anvil; turn the same,

And himself with it, that he thinks to frame,
Or for the laurel he may gain a scorn ;

For a good poet's made as well as born.

And such wert thou! Look how the father's face
Lives in his issue: even so the race

Of Shakespeare's mind and manners brightly shines
In his well-turnéd and true-filled lines,

In each of which he seems to shake a lance,
As brandished at the eyes of Ignorance.

4. Sweet Swan of Avon, what a sight it were
To see thee in our water yet appear,

And make those flights upon the banks of Thames
That so did take Eliza and our James!

But stay! I see thee in the hemisphere
Advanced, and made a constellation there.

Shine forth, thou Star of Poets, and with rage
Or influence chide or cheer the drooping stage,

Which since thy flight from hence hath mourned like
night,

And despairs day but for thy volume's light.

DEFINITIONS.-1. Suf'frage, opinion. 3. Laurel, an evergreen shrub used as a victor's crown. Issue, children.

NOTES.-2. Spenser. Edmund Spenser, one of the great poets of the reign of Queen Elizabeth.

Beaumont. Francis Beaumont, a popular dramatist in the reign of Queen Elizabeth.

4. Sweet Swan of Avon.

This well-known title was first applied to

Shakespeare by Ben Jonson in this poem.

Eliza and our James. Queen Elizabeth and her successor, James I.