52 JANUARY. 



A riband did the braided tresses bind, 

 The rest was loose and wanton'd in the wind. 

 Aurora had but newly chased the night, 

 And purpled o'er the sky with blushing light, 

 When to the garden walk she took her way, 

 To sport and trip along in cool of day, 

 And offer maiden vows in honour of the May. 

 At every turn she made a little stand, 

 And thrust among the thorns her lily hand 

 To draw the rose ; and every rose she drew, 

 She shook its stalk, and brush'd away the dew ; 

 Then party-colour flowers of white and red 

 She wove, to make a garland for her head : 

 This done, she sung and caroll'd out so clear, 

 Then men and angels might rejoice to hear. 



But how much more beautiful is Milton's picture of 

 our first mother, pursuing her pleasant labours in 

 the first garden, issuing from her bower at Adam's 

 call, 



Awake ! the morning shines, and the fresh field 

 Calls us ; we lose the prime to mark how spring 

 Our tender plants, how blows the citron grove, 

 What drops the myrrh, and what the balmy reed, 

 How Nature paints her colours, how the bee 

 Sits on the bloom, extracting liquid sweet : 



or, to her sylvan home, as we see her 



Just then return' d at shut of evening flowers : 



or, in the midst of that anguish, when hearing pro- 

 nounced her banishment from Eden, she exclaimed 

 " with audible lament," 



Oh, unexpected stroke, worse than of death ! 

 Must I thus leave thee, Paradise ? thus leave 



