| |
| .. YET 1 not the more | |
| Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt | |
| Cleer Spring, or shadie Grove, or Sunnie Hill, | |
| Smit with the love of sacred song; but chief | |
| Thee Sion and the flowrie Brooks beneath | 5 |
| That wash thy hallowd feet, and warbling flow, | |
| Nightly I visit: nor somtimes forget | |
| Those other two equal’d with me in Fate, | |
| So were I equal’d with them in renown, | |
| Blind Thamyris and blind Mæonides, | 10 |
| And Tiresias and Phineus Prophets old. | |
| Then feed on thoughts, that voluntarie move | |
| Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful Bird | |
| Sings darkling, and in shadiest Covert hid | |
| Tunes her nocturnal Note. Thus with the Year | 15 |
| Seasons return, but not to me returns | |
| Day, or the sweet approach of Ev’n or Morn, | |
| Or sight of vernal bloom, or Summers Rose, | |
| Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine; | |
| But cloud in stead, and ever-during dark | 20 |
| Surrounds me, from the chearful waies of men | |
| Cut off, and for the Book of knowledg fair | |
| Presented with a Universal blanc | |
| Of Natures works to mee expung’d and ras’d, | |
| And wisdome at one entrance quite shut out. | 25 |
| So much the rather thou Celestial light | |
| Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers | |
| Irradiate, there plant eyes, all mist from thence | |
| Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell | |
| Of things invisible to mortal sight … | 30 |
