Il Penseroso by John Milton

Companion poem

Milton wrote this as a pair with 'L'Allegro' (the cheerful man). Same meter, opposite moods—one celebrates joy, this one melancholy.

HEnce vain deluding joyes,

The brood of folly without father bred,

How little you bested,

Or fill the fixed mind with all your toyes;

Dwell in som idle brain,

And fancies fond with gaudy shapes possess,

As thick and numberless

As the gay motes that people the Sun Beams,

Or likest hovering dreams

The fickle Pensioners of Morpheus train.

But hail thou Goddes, sage and holy,

Hail divinest Melancholy,

Whose Saintly visage is too bright

To hit the Sense of human sight;

And therfore to our weaker view,

Ore laid with black staid Wisdoms hue.

Black, but such as in esteem,

Prince Memnons sister might beseem,

Or that Starr'd Ethiope Queen that strove

To sether beauties praise above

The Sea Nymphs, and their powers offended.

Yet thou art higher far descended,

Thee bright hair'd Vesta long of yore,

Mythological parentage

Milton invents a genealogy: Melancholy's parents are Vesta (virgin goddess of hearth) and Saturn (god of time/golden age). Saturn's reign was before Jove/Jupiter—before civilization's constraints.

To solitary Saturn bore;

His daughter she (in Saturns raign,

Such mixture was not held a stain)

Oft in glimmering Bowres, and glades

He met her, and in secret shades

Of woody Ida's inmost grove,

While yet there was no fear of Jove.

Com pensive Nun, devout and pure,

Sober, stedfast, and demure,

All in a robe of darkest grain,

Flowing with majestick train,

And sable stole of Cipres Lawn,

Over thy decent shoulders drawn.

Com, but keep thy wonted state,

With eev'n step, and musing gate,

And looks commercing with the skies,

Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes:

There held in holy passion still,

Forget thy self to Marble, till

With a sad Leaden downward cast,

Thou fix them on the earth as fast.

And joyn with thee calm Peace, and Quiet,

Spare Fast, that oft with gods doth diet,

And hears the Muses in a ring,

Ay round about Joves Altar sing.

And adde to these retired leasure,

That in trim Gardens takes his pleasure;

But first, and chiefest, with thee bring,

Him that yon fears on golden wing,

Guiding the fiery-wheeled throne,

The Cherub Contemplation,

And the mute Silence hist along,

Less Philomel will daign a Song,

Id her sweetest, saddest plight,

Smoothing the rugged brow of night,

While Cynthia checks her Dragon yoke,

Gently o're th'accustom'd Oke;

Sweet Bird that shunn'st the noise of folly,

Most musicall, most melancholy!

Thee Chauntress oft the Woods among,

I woo to hear thy eeven-Song;

And missing thee, I walk unseen

On the dry smooth-shaven Green,

To behold the wandring Moon,

Riding neer her highest noon,

Like one that had bin led astray

Through the Heav'ns wide pathles way;

And oft, as if her head she bow'd,

Stooping through a fleecy cloud.

Oft on a Plat of rising ground,

I hear the far-off Curfeu sound,

Over som wide-water'd shoar,

Swinging slow with sullen roar;

Or if the Ayr will not permit,

Som still removed place will fit,

Where glowing Embers through the room

Teach light to counterfeit a gloom,

Far from all resort of mirth,

Save the Cricket on the hearth,

Or the Belmans drousie charm,

To bless the dores from nightly harm;

Or let my Lamp at midnight hour,

Be seen in som high lonely Towr,

Hermes Trismegistus

'Thrice great Hermes'—Hermes Trismegistus, legendary author of occult/hermetic texts on magic and alchemy that Renaissance scholars studied seriously.

Where I may oft out-watch the Bear,

With thrice great Hermes, or unsphear

The spirit of Plato to unfold

What Worlds, or what vast Regions hold

The immortal mind that hath forsook

Her mansion in this fleshly nook:

And of those Dæmons that are found

In fire, air, flood, or under ground,

Whose power hath a true consent

With Planet, or with Element.

Som time let Gorgeous Tragedy

In Secpter'd Pall com sweeping by,

Presenting Thebs, or Pelops line,

Or the tale of Troy divine.

Or what (though rare) of later age,

Ennobled hath the Buskind stage.

But, O sad Virgin, that thy power

Might raise Musæus from his bower,

Or bid the soul of Orpheus sing

Such notes as warbled to the string.

Drew Iron tears down Pluto's cheek,

And made Hell grant what Love did seek.

Or call up him that left half told

Chaucer's unfinished tale

The Squire's Tale in Canterbury Tales, which Chaucer left incomplete. Milton wants Melancholy to resurrect dead poets to finish their work.

The story of Cambuscan bold,

Of Cumball, and of Algarsife,

And who had Canace to wife,

That own'd the vertuous Ring and Glass.

And of the Wondrous Hors of Brass,

On which the Tartar King did ride;

And if ought els, great Bards beside,

In sage and solemn tunes have sung

Of Turneys and of Trophies hung;

Of Forests, and inchantments drear,

Where more is meant then meets the car.

Thus night oft see me in thy pale career,

Till civil-suited Morn appeer,

Not trickt and frounc't as she was wont,

With the Attick Boy to hunt,

But Cherchef't in a comly Cloud,

While rocking Winds are Piping loud,

Or usher'd with a shower still,

When the gust hath blown his fill,

Ending on the russling Leaves,

With minute drops from off the Eaves.

And when the Sun begins to fling

His flaring beams, me Goddes bring

To arched walks of twilight groves.

And shadows brown that Sylvan loves

Of Pine, or monumental Oake,

Where the rude Ax with heaved stroke,

Was never heard the Nymphs to daunt,

Or fright them from their hallow'd haunt

There in close covert by som Brook.

Where no profaner eye may look,

Hide me from Day's garish eie,

While the Bee with Honied thie,

That at her flowry work doth sing,

And the Waters murmuring

With such consort as they keep,

Entice the dewy-feather'd Sleep;

And let som strange mysterious dream,

Wave at his Wings in Airy stream,

Of lively portrature display'd,

Softly on my eye-lids laid.

And as I wake, sweet musick breath

Above, about, or underneath,

Sent by som spirit to mortals good,

Or th'unseen Genius of the Wood.

But let my due feet never fail,

To walk the studious Cloysters pale,

And love the high embowed Roof,

With antick Pillars massy proof,

And storied Windows richly dight,

Calling a dimm religious light.

There let the pealing Organ blow,

To the full voic'd Quire below,

In Service high, and Anthems cleer,

As may with sweetnes, through mine ear,

Dissolve me into extasies,

And bring all Heav'n before mine eyes.

And may at last my weary age

Find out the peacefull hermitage,

The Hairy Gown and Mossy Cell,

Where I may sit and rightly spell,

Of every Star that Heav'n doth shew,

And every Herb that sips the dew;

Till old experience do attain

To somthing like Prophetic strain.

These pleasures Melancholy give,

And I with thee will choose to live.