his sycamore, as Virgil's Tityrus and his Meliboeus did, under
their broad beech tree. No life, my honest scholar, no life so happy and
so pleasant, as the life of a well-governed angler; for when the lawyer
is swallowed up with business, and the statesman is preventing or
contriving plots, then we sit on cowslip banks, hear the birds sing, and
possess ourselves in as much quietness as these silent silver streams,
which we now see glide so quietly by us. Indeed, my good scholar, we may
say of angling as Dr. Boteler said of strawberries, "Doubtless, God
could have made a better berry, but doubtless, God never did;" and so,
if I might be judge, "God never did make a more calm, quiet, innocent
recreation than angling."

IX. ON THE MORNING OF CHRIST'S NATIVITY.

(1629).

JOHN MILTON.--1608-1674.

I.

This is the month, and this the happy morn,
Wherein the Son of Heaven's Eternal King,
Of wedded maid and virgin mother born,
Our great redemption from above did bring;
For so the holy sages once did sing,
That he our deadly forfeit should release,
And with his Father work us a perpetual peace.

II.

That glorious form, that light unsufferable,
And that far-beaming blaze of majesty,
Wherewith he wont at Heaven's high council-table
To sit the midst of Trinal Unity,
He laid aside; and, here with us to be,
Forsook the courts of everlasting day,
And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay.

III.

Say, Heavenly Muse, shall not thy sacred vein
Afford a present to the Infant God?
Hast thou no verse, no hymn, or solemn strain,
To welcome him to this his new abode,
Now while the heaven, by the Sun's team untrod,
Hath took no print of the approaching light,
And all the spangled host keep watch in squadrons bright?

IV.

See how from far upon the eastern road
The star-led wizards haste with odors sweet!
O run, prevent them with thy humble ode,
And lay it lowly at his blessed feet;
Have thou the honor first thy Lord to greet,
And join thy voice unto the Angel Choir,
From out his secret altar touch'd with hallow'd fire.

* * * * *

THE HYMN.

1.

It was the winter wild,
While the Heaven-born child,
All meanly wrapt, in the rude manger lies;
Nature, in awe to him,
Had doff'd her gaudy trim,
With her great Master