Sonnet LI To Sylvia on Her Approaching Nuptials
Hope comes to Youth, gliding thro’ azure skies
With amaranth crown:—her full robe, snowy white,
Floats on the gale, and our exulting sight
Marks it afar.—From waning Life she flies,
Wrapt in a mist, covering her starry eyes
With her fair hand.—But now, in floods of light,
She meets thee, Sylvia, and with glances, bright
As lucid streams, when Spring’s clear mornings rise.
From Hymen’s kindling torch, a yellow ray
The shining texture of her spotless vest
Gilds;—and the Month that gives the early day
The scent odōrous1, and the carol blest,
Pride of the rising Year, enamour’d May,
Paints its redundant folds with florets gay.
Notes
1: Odōrous. Milton, in the Par. Lost, gives the lengthened and harmonious accent to that word, rather than the short, and common one, ōdorous:
——“the bright consummate flower
Spirit odōrous breathes.”