468 SPRING AND THE POETS. 



Who now shall rear ye to the sun or rank 

 Your tribes ? " 



The apostrophe to her flowers is as tender as that of a mother 

 bereaved of her children. Samson Agonistes has been with us at all 

 times one of Milton's most frequently read writings, and this chiefly 

 from the several touching allusions it contains to his deprivation of 

 sight : 



" A little onward lend thy guiding hand," 



always conjures up before our eyes the blind and tottering poet led 

 by one of his daughters. 



* "a little further on, 

 For yonder bank hath choice of sun and shade. 



here I feel amends, 



The breath of Heaven fresh blowing pure and sweet 

 With day-spring born." 



Perhaps, however, it is to the connexion with the influence produced 

 upon us by sound, that we owe two of the most beautiful pas- 

 sages in Comus itself a peerless poem from beginning to end. 



" At last a soft and solemn breathing sound 

 Rose like a stream of rich distill'd perfumes, 

 And stole upon the air." 



It is impossible to imagine any thing more finely conceived and more 

 musically expressed : its only rival is a passage a little before it : 



" Can any mortal mixture of earth's mould 

 Breathe such divine enchanting ravishment ? 

 Sure something holy lodges in that breast, 

 And with these raptures moves the vocal air, 

 To testify his hidden residence. 

 How sweetly did they float upon the wings 

 Of silence * * * * 

 At every fall, smoothing the raven-down 

 Of darkness, till it smiled /" 



How finely attuned must the mind have been, to which the simile in 

 the last four lines could present itself. Nature seems to have breathed 

 into Milton's heart her most choice influences ; for the above are the 

 expressions of a man who lived in bustling times, and who took his 

 share in them, and whose pen for years was employed in all the gall 

 and bitterness of polemical and political writing. Yet, above all this, 

 the pure and healthy love of natural objects flamed brilliantly to the 

 last, even when his body was worn down by adversity and physical 

 suffering. 



Amongst the many seasonal observances which have disappeared 

 before the spread of civilization, there is one which we greatly regret 

 and this is the May-games, the relics of the ancient Floralia; 

 which, as being in accordance with the feelings excited by the whole 

 vegetable world, rising from its winter sleep, kept its hold upon the 

 popular mind through a long succession of centuries. The Romans 



