I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude,
And with forced fingers rude

Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year.

Lycidas. Line 3.

He knew

Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme.
Without the meed of some melodious tear.

Line 10.

Line 14.

Under the opening eyelids of the morn.

Line 26.

But O the heavy change, now thou art gone,

Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise 1

(That last infirmity of noble mind)

To scorn delights, and live laborious days;

But the fair guerdon when we hope to find,

And think to burst out into sudden blaze,

Comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears,
And slits the thin-spun life.

Line 70.

Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil.

Line 78.

It was that fatal and perfidious bark,

Built in the eclipse, and rigged with curses dark.

Line 100.

The pilot of the Galilean lake;

Two massy keys he bore, of metals twain

(The golden opes, the iron shuts amain).

Line 109.

1 Erant quibus appetentior famæ videretur, quando etiam sapientibus cupido gloriæ novissima exuitur. - Tacitus, Histor., iv. 6.

But that two-handed engine at the door
Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more.
Lycidas. Line 130.
Throw hither all your quaint enamelled eyes,
That on the green turf suck the honeyed showers,
And purple all the ground with vernal flowers.
Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies,
The tufted crow-toe, and pale jessamine,

The white pink, and the pansy freaked with jet,
The glowing violet,

The musk-rose, and the well-attired woodbine,
With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head,
And every flower that sad embroidery wears.

Line 139.

So sinks the day-star in the ocean-bed,
And yet anon repairs his drooping head,

And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore
Flames in the forehead of the morning sky.

Line 168.

To-morrow to fresh woods, and pastures new.

Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee
Jest, and youthful Jollity,

Quips, and Cranks, and wanton Wiles,
Nods, and Becks, and wreathed Smiles.

Sport, that wrinkled Care derides,
And Laughter holding both his sides.
Come, and trip it as you go,

Line 193.

L' Allegro. Line 25.

Towers and battlements it sees

Bosomed high in tufted trees,

Where perhaps some beauty lies,

The cynosure of neighbouring eyes. L' Allegro. Line 75.

Herbs, and other country messes,
Which the neat-handed Phillis dresses.

To many a youth, and many a maid,
Dancing in the chequered shade.

Then to the spicy nut-brown ale.
Towered cities please us then,
And the busy hum of men.

Ladies, whose bright eyes

Rain influence, and judge the prize.
Such sights as youthful poets dream
On summer eves by haunted stream.
Then to the well-trod stage anon,

If Jonson's learned sock be on,

Line 85.

Line 95.

Line 100.

Line 117.

Line 121.

Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child,
Warble his native wood-notes wild.

Line 129.

And ever against eating cares

Lap me in soft Lydian airs, Married to immortal verse,1 1

Such as the meeting soul may pierce,

And looks commercing with the skies,

Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes. Il Penseroso. Line 39.

Forget thyself to marble.

Line 42.

And join with thee calm Peace and Quiet,

Spare Fast, that oft with gods doth diet.

Line 45.

And add to these retired Leisure,

That in trim gardens takes his pleasure.

Line 49.

Sweet bird, that shunn'st the noise of folly,

Most musical, most melancholy!

Line 61.

To behold the wandering moon,

Riding near her highest noon,
Like one that had been led astray

Through the heaven's wide pathless way;
And oft, as if her head she bowed,

Or bid the soul of Orpheus sing
Such notes as, warbled to the string,
Drew iron tears down Pluto's cheek.

Line 105.

Or call up him that left half told

The story of Cambuscan bold.

Line 109.

Where more is meant than meets the ear.

Line 120.

Ending on the rustling leaves,
With minute drops from off the eaves.

Hide me from day's garish eye.

And storied windows richly dight,
Casting a dim religious light.

Till old experience do attain

To something like prophetic strain.

Il Penseroso. Line 129.

Such sweet compulsion doth in music lie.

Under the shady roof

Of branching elm star-proof.

No war or battle's sound

Line 141.

Line 159.

Line 173.

Arcades. Line 68.

Line 88.

Was heard the world around.

Hymn on Christ's Nativity. Line 53.

Time will run back, and fetch the age of gold. Line 135.

Swinges the scaly horror of his folded tail.

The oracles are dumb,

No voice or hideous hum

Line 172.

Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving.
Apollo from his shrine

Can no more divine,

With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving.

No nightly trance, or breathed spell

Inspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell.