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John Bartlett (1820–1905). Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. 1919.

Page 245

 
 
John Milton. (1608–1674) (continued)
 
That breaks his magic chains at curfew time,
No goblin, or swart fairy of the mine,
Hath hurtful power o’er true virginity.
          Comus. Line 432.
2715
    So dear to heav’n is saintly chastity,
That when a soul is found sincerely so,
A thousand liveried angels lackey her,
Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt,
And in clear dream and solemn vision
Tell her of things that no gross ear can hear,
Till oft converse with heav’nly habitants
Begin to cast a beam on th’ outward shape.
          Comus. Line 453.
2716
    How charming is divine philosophy!
Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose,
But musical as is Apollo’s lute, 1
And a perpetual feast of nectar’d sweets
Where no crude surfeit reigns.
          Comus. Line 476.
2717
    And sweeten’d every musk-rose of the dale.
          Comus. Line 496.
2718
    Fill’d the air with barbarous dissonance.
          Comus. Line 550.
2719
    I was all ear,
And took in strains that might create a soul
Under the ribs of death.
          Comus. Line 560.
2720
    That power
Which erring men call Chance.
          Comus. Line 587.
2721
    If this fail,
The pillar’d firmament is rottenness,
And earth’s base built on stubble.
          Comus. Line 597.
2722
    The leaf was darkish, and had prickles on it,
But in another country, as he said,
Bore a bright golden flow’r, but not in this soil;
Unknown, and like esteem’d, and the dull swain
Treads on it daily with his clouted shoon.
          Comus. Line 631.
2723
    Enter’d the very lime-twigs of his spells,
And yet came off.
          Comus. Line 646.
 
Note 1.
See Shakespeare, Love’s Labour ’s Lost, Quotation 30. [back]