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Subject Area: Literature
Collection: Banned Books
Topic: Epic Literature

Song on May Morning - John Milton, The Poetical Works of John Milton [1900]

Edition used:

The Poetical Works of John Milton, edited after the Original Texts by the Rev. H.C. Beeching M.A. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1900).

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Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


SONG

  • On May morning.
  • Now the bright morning Star, Dayes harbinger,
  • Comes dancing from the East, and leads with her
  • The Flowry May, who from her green lap throws
  • The yellow Cowslip, and the pale Primrose.
  • Hail bounteous May that dost inspire
  • Mirth and youth, and warm desire,
  • Woods and Groves, are of thy dressing,
  • Hill and Dale, doth boast thy blessing.
  • Thus we salute thee with our early Song,
  • And welcom thee, and wish thee long.10
  • On Shakespear. 1630.
  • Whatneeds my Shakespear for his honour’d Bones,
  • The labour of an age in piled Stones,
  • Or that his hallow’d reliques should be hid
  • Under a Star-ypointing Pyramid?
  • Dear son of memory, great heir of Fame,
  • What need’st thou such weak witnes of thy name?
  • Thou in our wonder and astonishment
  • Hast built thy self a live-long Monument.
  • For whilst to th’shame of slow-endeavouring art,
  • Thy easie numbers flow, and that each heart10
  • Hath from the leaves of thy unvalu’d Book,
  • Those Delphick lines with deep impression took,
  • Then thou our fancy of it self bereaving,
  • Dost make us Marble with too much conceaving;
  • And so Sepulcher’d in such pomp dost lie,
  • That Kings for such a Tomb would wish to die.

On Shakespear. Reprinted 1632 in the second folio Shakespeare: Title] An epitaph on the admirable dramaticke poet W. Shakespeare

  • On the University Carrier who

    sickn’d in the time of his vacancy, being forbid to go to London, by reason of the Plague.
  • Here lies old Hobson, Death hath broke his girt,
  • And here alas, hath laid him in the dirt,
  • Or els the ways being foul, twenty to one,
  • He’s here stuck in a slough, and overthrown.
  • ’Twas such a shifter, that if truth were known,
  • Death was half glad when he had got him down;
  • For he had any time this ten yeers full,
  • Dodg’d with him, betwixt Cambridge and the Bull.
  • And surely, Death could never have prevail’d,
  • Had not his weekly cours of carriage fail’d;10
  • But lately finding him so long at home,
  • And thinking now his journeys end was come,
  • And that he had tane up his latest Inne,
  • In the kind office of a Chamberlin
  • Shew’d him his room where he must lodge that night,
  • Pull’d off his Boots, and took away the light:
  • If any ask for him, it shall be sed,
  • Hobson has supt, and’s newly gon to bed.

[[ ]]1 needs] neede

[[ ]]6 weak] dull

[[ ]]8 live-long] lasting

[[ ]]10 heart] part

[[ ]]13 it] her