88 lines
3.0 KiB
Plaintext
88 lines
3.0 KiB
Plaintext
1645
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THE PASSION
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by John Milton
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I
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Ere-while of Musick, and Ethereal mirth,
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Wherwith the stage of Ayr and Earth did ring,
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And joyous news of heav'nly Infants birth,
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My muse with Angels did divide to sing;
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But headlong joy is ever on the wing,
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In Wintry solstice like the shortn'd light
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Soon swallow'd up in dark and long out-living night.
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II
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For now to sorrow must I tune my song,
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And set my Harpe to notes of saddest wo,
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Which on our dearest Lord did sease er'e long,
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Dangers, and snares, and wrongs, and worse then so,
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Which he for us did freely undergo.
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Most perfect Heroe, try'd in heaviest plight
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Of labours huge and hard, too hard for human wight.
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III
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He sov'ran Priest stooping his regall head
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That dropt with odorous oil down his fair eyes,
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Poor fleshly Tabernacle entered,
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His starry front low-rooft beneath the skies;
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O what a Mask was there, what a disguise!
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Yet more; the stroke of death he must abide,
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Then lies him meekly down fast by his Brethrens side.
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IV
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These latter scenes confine my roving vers,
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To this Horizon is my Phoebus bound,
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His Godlike acts, and his temptations fierce,
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And former sufferings other where are found;
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Loud o're the rest Cremona's Trump doth sound;
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Me softer airs befit, and softer strings
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Of Lute, or Viol still, more apt for mournful things.
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V
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Befriend me night best Patroness of grief,
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Over the Pole thy thickest mantle throw,
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And work my flatter'd fancy to belief,
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That Heav'n and Earth are colour'd with my wo;
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My sorrows are too dark for day to know:
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The leaves should all be black whereon I write,
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And letters where my tears have washt a wannish white.
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VI
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See see the Chariot, and those rushing wheels,
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That whirl'd the Prophet up at Chebar flood,
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My spirit som transporting Cherub feels,
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To bear me where the Towers of Salem stood,
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Once glorious Towers, now sunk in guiltles blood;
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There doth my soul in holy vision sit
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In pensive trance, and anguish, and ecstatick fit.
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VII
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Mine eye hath found that sad Sepulchral rock
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That was the Casket of Heav'ns richest store,
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And here though grief my feeble hands up-lock,
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Yet on the softned Quarry would I score
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My plaining vers as lively as before;
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For sure so well instructed are my tears,
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That they would fitly fall in order'd Characters.
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VIII
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Or should I thence hurried on viewles wing,
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Take up a weeping on the Mountains wilde,
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The gentle neighbourhood of grove and spring
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Would soon unboosom all their Echoes milde,
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And I (for grief is easily beguild)
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Might think th' infection of my sorrows loud,
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Had got a race of mourners on som pregnant cloud.
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This Subject the Author finding to be above the yeers he had, when
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he wrote it, and nothing satisfi'd with what was begun, left it
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unfinisht.
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