48 JOHN MILTON 
Towers and battlements it sees, 
Bosomed high in tufted trees. 
* * * * 
Hard by a cottage chimney smokes 
From betwixt two aged oaks, 
Where Corydon and Thyrsis met 
Are at their savoury dinner set 
Of herbs and other country messes 
Which the neat-handed Phillis dresses.” 
After the day and evening, with their innocent country 
pleasures, have received due mention, the occasional 
visit to London is not forgotten. 
“Then to the well-trod stage anon, 
If Jonson’s learned sock be on, 
Or sweetest Shakespeare, fancy’s child, 
Warble his native woodnotes wild ; 
And ever against eating cares 
Lap me in soft Lydian airs, 
Married to immortal verse. . . . 
And so on to the final invocation. 
“These delights, if thou canst give, 
Mirth, with thee I mean to live.” 
Nothing could be further from the conventional Puri- 
tanism, as remembered in New England, than the mood 
in which these verses were conceived. In the com- 
panion address to Melancholy, wherein Milton’s 
deeper soul finds expression, we have all the earnest- 
ness of the Puritan, without the slightest attempt to 
suppress or hide the worship of the beautiful. From 
the opening line: — 
“Hence, vain deluding joys,” 
