Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ELEGY: 5. ON THE APPROACH OF SPRING, by JOHN MILTON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ELEGY: 5. ON THE APPROACH OF SPRING, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Time, never wand'ring from his annual round
Last Line: Too soon to night's encroaching, long control!
Subject(s): Spring


(WRITTEN IN THE AUTHOR'S TWENTIETH YEAR)

TIME, never wandering from his annual round,
Bids Zephyr breathe the Spring, and thaw the ground;
Bleak Winter flies, new verdure clothes the plain,
And Earth assumes her transient youth again.
Dream I, or also to the Spring belong
Increase of genius, and new powers of song?
Spring gives them, and, how strange soe'er it seems,
Impels me now to some harmonious themes.
Castalia's fountain and the forked hill,
By day, by night, my raptured fancy fill;
My bosom burns and heaves, I hear within
A sacred sound that prompts me to begin.
Lo, Phoebus comes! with his bright hair he blends
The radiant laurel wreath; Phoebus descends:
I mount, and undepressed by cumbrous clay
Through cloudy regions win my easy way;
Rapt, through poetic shadowy haunts I fly;
The shrines all open to my dauntless eye,
My spirit searches all the realms of light,
And no Tartarean gulfs elude my sight.
But this ecstatic trance--this glorious storm
Of inspiration--what will it perform?
Spring claims the verse, that with his influence glows,
And shall be paid with what himself bestows.
Thou, veiled with opening foliage, lead'st the throng
Of feathered minstrels, Philomel! in song;
Let us, in concert, to the season sing,
Civic and sylvan heralds of the Spring!
With notes triumphant Spring's approach declare!
To Spring, ye Muses, annual tribute bear!
The Orient left and AEthiopia's plains,
The Sun now northward turns his golden reins;
Night creeps not now, yet rules with gentle sway,
And drives her dusky horrors swift away;
Now less fatigued, on this ethereal plain
Bootes follows his celestial wain;
And now the radiant sentinels above,
Less numerous, watch around the courts of Jove,
For, with the night, force, ambush, slaughter fly,
And no gigantic guilt alarms the sky,
Now haply says some shepherd, while he views,
Recumbent on a rock, the reddening dews,
This night, this surely, Phoebus missed the Fair,
Who stops his chariot by her amorous care.
Cynthia, delighted by the morning's glow,
Speeds to the woodland, and resumes her bow;
Resigns her beams, and, glad to disappear,
Blesses his aid who shortens her career.
Come--Phoebus cries--Aurora come--too late
Thou lingerest, slumbering, with thy withered mate!
Leave him, and to Hymettus' top repair!
Thy darling Cephalus expects thee there.
The goddess, with a blush, her love betrays,
But mounts, and, driving rapidly, obeys.
Earth now desires thee, Phoebus! and to engage
Thy warm embrace, casts off the guise of age;
Desires thee, and deserves; for who so sweet,
When her rich bosom courts thy genial heat?
Her breath imparts to every breeze that blows
Arabia's harvest, and the Paphian rose.
Her lofty fronts she diadems around
With sacred pines, like Ops on Ida crowned;
Her dewy locks with various flowers new-blown
She interweaves, various, and all her own,
For Proserpine, in such a wreath attired,
Taenarian Dis himself with love inspired.
Fear not, lest, cold and coy, the nymph refuse!
Herself, with all her sighing Zephyrs, sues;
Each courts thee, fanning soft his scented wing,
And all her groves with warbled wishes ring.
Nor, unendowed and indigent, aspires
The amorous Earth to engage thy warm desires,
But, rich in balmy drugs, assists thy claim,
Divine Physician! to that glorious name.
If splendid recompense, if gifts can move
Desire in thee (gifts often purchase love),
She offers all the wealth her mountains hide,
And all that rests beneath the boundless tide.
How oft, when headlong from the heavenly steep
She sees thee playing in the western deep,
How oft she cries--"Ah Phoebus! why repair
Thy wasted force, why seek refreshment there?
Can Tethys win thee? wherefore shouldst thou lave
A face so fair in her unpleasant wave?
Come, seek my green retreats, and rather chuse
To cool thy tresses in my crystal dews,
The grassy turf shall yield thee sweeter rest;
Come, lay thy evening glories on my breast,
And breathing fresh, through many a humid rose,
Soft whispering airs shall lull thee to repose!
No fears I feel like Semele to die,
Nor lest thy burning wheels approach too nigh,--
For thou canst govern them; here therefore rest,
And lay thy evening glories on my breast!"
Thus breathes the wanton Earth her amorous flame,
And all her countless offspring feel the same;
For Cupid now through every region strays,
Brightening his faded fires with solar rays;
His new-strung bow sends forth a deadlier sound,
And his new-pointed shafts more deeply wound;
Nor Dian's self escapes him now untried,
Nor even Vesta at her altar-side;
His mother too repairs her beauty's wane,
And seems sprung newly from the deep again.
Exulting youths the Hymeneal sing,
With Hymen's name roofs, rocks, and valleys ring;
He, new-attired, and by the season drest,
Proceeds, all fragrant, in his saffron vest.
Now, many a golden-cinctured virgin roves
To taste the pleasures of the fields and groves;
All wish, and each alike, some favourite youth
Hers, in the bonds of Hymeneal truth.
Now pipes the shepherd through his reeds again,
Nor Phillis wants a song that suits the strain;
With songs the seaman hails the starry sphere,
And dolphins rise from the abyss to hear;
Jove feels himself the season, sports again
With his fair spouse, and banquets all his train.
Now too the Satyrs, in the dusk of eve,
Their mazy dance through flowery meadows weave,
And neither god nor goat, but both in kind,
Silvanus, wreathed with cypress, skips behind.
The Dryads leave their hollow sylvan cells
To roam the banks and solitary dells;
Pan riots now, and from his amorous chafe
Ceres and Cybele seem hardly safe;
And Faunus, all on fire to reach the prize,
In chase of some enticing Oread flies;
She bounds before, but fears too swift a bound,
And hidden lies, but wishes to be found.
Our shades entice the Immortals from above,
And some kind power presides o'er every grove;
And long, ye Powers, o'er every grove preside,
For all is safe and blest, where ye abide!
Return, O Jove! the age of gold restore--
Why choose to dwell where storms and thunder roar?
At least, thou, Phoebus! moderate thy speed!
Let not the vernal hours too swift proceed,
Command rough Winter back, nor yield the pole
Too soon to Night's encroaching, long control!





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