Fairest of stars, last in the train of night, If better thou belong not to the dawn.

How sweetly did they float upon the wings Of silence through the empty-vaulted night, At every fall smoothing the raven down Of darkness till it smiled!

Of four infernal rivers that disgorge/ Into the burning Lake their baleful streams;/Abhorred Styx the flood of deadly hate,/Sad Acheron of sorrow, black and deep;/Cocytus, nam'd of lamentation loud/ Heard on the rueful stream; fierce Phlegethon/ Whose waves of torrent fire inflame with rage./ Far off from these a slow and silent stream,/ Lethe the River of Oblivion rolls/ Her wat'ry Labyrinth whereof who drinks,/ Forthwith his former state and being forgets,/ Forgets both joy and grief, pleasure and pain.

I was all ear, And took in strains that might create a soul Under the ribs of death.

This is servitude, To serve the unwise.

Which way I fly is Hell; myself am Hell.

Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures Whilst the landscape round it measures, Russet lawns and fallows grey, Where the nibbling flocks do stray, Mountains on whose barren breast The labouring clouds do often rest; Meadows trim with daisies pied, Shallow brooks, and rivers wide.