Side 84 af 239

And now, divided into four main streams,

But rather to tell how, if art could tell,

Rolling on orient pearl and sands of gold,

Flowers worthy of Paradise, which not nice art

Poured forth profuse on hill, and dale, and plain,

Both where the morning sun first warmly smote

Imbrowned the noontide bowers. Thus was this place

Groves whose rich trees wept odorous gums and balm;

The open field, and where the unpierced shade

Others whose fruit, burnished with golden rind,

Betwixt them lawns, or level downs, and flocks

Flowers of all hue, and without thorn the rose.

A happy rural seat of various view;

Hung amiable, Hesperian fables true,

If true, here only, and of delicious taste.

Grazing the tender herb, were interposed;

Of some irriguous valley spread her store,

Another side, umbrageous grots and caves

Of cool recess, o'er which the mantling vine

Lays forth her purple grape, and gently creeps

Luxuriant. Meanwhile murmuring waters fall

Down the slope hills, dispersed, or in a lake,

Her crystal mirror holds, unite their streams.

The birds their quire apply; airs, vernal airs,

Breathing the smell of field and grove, attune

The trembling leaves, while universal Pan,2

That to the fringed bank with myrtle crowned

Or palmy hillock, or the flowery lap

In beds and curious knots, but nature boon

With mazy error under pendent shades

Ran nectar, visiting each plant, and fed

Runs diverse, wandering many a famous realm

And country, whereof here needs no account;

How from that sapphire fount the crisped brooks,

87

Knit with the Graces and the Hours' in dance, Led on the Eternal Spring. Not that fair field Of Enna, where Proserpine² gathering flowers, Herself a fairer flower, by gloomy Dis3 Was gathered, which cost Ceres all that pain To seek her through the world; nor that sweet grove Of Daphne by Orontes, and the inspired Castilian spring, might with the Paradise Of Eden strive; nor that Nyseian isle Girt with the river Triton, where old Cham, Whom Gentiles Ammon call and Lybian Jove, Hid Amalthea, and her florid son, Young Bacchus from his stepdame Rhea's eye: Nor where Abassin kings their issue guard, Mount Amara,6 though this by some supposed True Paradise, under the Ethiop line By Nilus's head, enclosed with shining rock, A whole day's journey high, but wide remote From this Assyrian garden, where the Fiend Saw, undelighted, all delight, all kind Of living creatures, new to sight and strange.

Two of far nobler shape, erect and tall, Godlike erect, with native houour clad, In naked majesty seemed lords of all, And worthy seemed: for in their looks divine The image of their glorious Maker shone, Truth, wisdom, sanctitude severe and pure, Severe, but in true filial freedom placed, Whence true authority in men: though both Not equal, as their sex not equal seemed; For contemplation he, and valour formed;

Amiable. - Lovely, so as to call forth affection, desire.

^" Universal Pan .- Hav, all. The symbol with the ancients of all nature-the universe.

¹ The Graces and the Hours. - Female divinities, accepted as emblems of the beauty, joy, and harmony of the seasons, especially of the spring. 2 Proscrpine has the accent here on the second syllable, as in the Latin.

^\Nyseian isle.—Enna, the grave of Daphne, and the Nyseian isle, were all places celebrated for their beauty by the Greek and Roman poets,

^\ Mount Amara, —A mountain seclusion, to which some of the later emporors sent their younger sons for education.