owed before her: "Answer," said
she, "great Father of Waters, thou that rollest thy floods through
eighty nations, to the invocation of the daughter of thy native king.
Tell me, if thou waterest, through all thy course, a single
habitation from which thou dost not hear the murmurs of complaint."'"

23. _Margent green_. Cf. _Comus_, 232: "By slow Maeander's margent
green."

24. Cf. Pope, _Essay on Man_, iii. 233: "To Virtue, in the paths of
Pleasure, trod."

26. _Thy glassy wave_. Cf. _Comus_, 861: "Under the glassy, cool,
translucent wave."

27. _The captive linnet_. The adjective is redundant and "proleptic,"
as the bird must be "enthralled" before it can be called "captive."

28. In the MS. this line reads, "To chase the hoop's illusive speed,"
which seems to us better than the revised form in the text.

30. Cf. Pope, _Dunciad_, iv. 592: "The senator at cricket urge the
ball."

37. Cf. Cowley, _Ode to Hobbes_, iv. 7: "Till unknown regions it
descries."

40. _A fearful joy_. Wakefield quotes _Matt._ xxviii. 8 and _Psalms_
ii. 11. Cf. Virgil, _Aen._ i. 513:

"Obstupuit simul ipse simul perculsus Achates
Laetitiaque metuque."

See also _Lear_, v. 3: "'Twixt two extremes of passion, joy and
grief."

44. Cf. Pope, _Eloisa_, 209: "Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind;"
and _Essay on Man_, iv. 168: "The soul's calm sunshine, and the
heartfelt joy."

45. _Buxom_. Used here in its modern sense. It originally meant
pliant, flexible, yielding (from A. S. _bugan_, to bow); then, gay,
frolicsome, lively; and at last it became associated with the
"cheerful comeliness" of vigorous health. Chaucer has "buxom to ther
lawe," and Spenser (_State of Ireland_), "more tractable and buxome
to his government." Cf. also _F. Q._ i. 11, 37: "the buxome aire;" an
expression which Milton uses twice (_P. L._ ii. 842, v. 270). In
_L'Allegro_, 24: "So buxom, blithe, and debonaire;" the only other
instance in which he uses the word, it means sprightly or "free" (as
in "Come thou goddess, fair and free," a few lines before). Cf.
Shakes. _Pericles_, i. prologue:

"So buxom, blithe, and full of face,
As heaven had lent her all his grace."

The word occurs nowhere else in Shakes. except _Hen. V._ iii. 6: "Of
buxom valour;" that is, lively valour.

Dr. Johnson appears to have had in mind the original meaning of
_buxom_ in his comment on this passage: "His epithet _buxom health_
is not elegant; he seems not to understand t