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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).

About Liberty Fund:

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