No worthy enterprise can be done by us without continual plodding and wearisomeness to our faint and sensitive abilities.

Who, as they sung, would take the prison'd soul And lap it in Elysium.

Such as the meeting soul may pierce, In notes with many a winding bout Of linked sweetness long drawn out.

At His birth a star, unseen before in heaven, proclaims Him come.

The olive grove of Academe, Plato's retirement, where the Attic bird Trills her thick-warbled notes the summer long.

I sung of Chaos and Eternal Night, Taught by the heav'nly Muse to venture down The dark descent, and up to reascend.

Should God create another Eve, and I Another Rib afford, yet loss of thee Would never from my heart; no no, I feel The Link of Nature draw me: Flesh of Flesh, Bone of my Bone thou art, and from thy State Mine never shall be parted, bliss or woe.