Book 1 Chapter 3

BUT come, thou Goddess, fair and free, In heaven yclept Euphrosyne!

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To hear the lark begin his flight, And, singing, startle the dull night.--L'Allegro.

But come, thou Goddess, sage and holy, Come, divinest Melancholy!

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There held in holy passion still, Forget thyself to marble.--Il Penseroso.

THE early morn of early spring--what associations of freshness and hope in that single sentence! And there a little after sunrise--there was Evelyn, fresh and hopeful as the morning itself, bounding with the light step of a light heart over the lawn. Alone, alone! no governess, with a pinched nose and a sharp voice, to curb her graceful movements, and tell her how young ladies ought to walk. How silently morning stole over the earth! It was as if youth had the day and the world to itself. The shutters of the cottage were still closed, and Evelyn cast a glance upward, to assure herself that her mother, who also rose betimes, was not yet stirring. So she tripped along, singing from very glee, to secure a companion, and let out Sultan; and a few moments afterwards, they were scouring over the grass, and descending the rude steps that wound down the cliff to the smooth sea sands. Evelyn was still a child at heart, yet somewhat more than a child in mind. In the majesty of-"That hollow, sounding, and mysterious main,"-in the silence broken but by the murmur of the billows, in the solitude relieved but by the boats of the early fishermen, she felt those deep and tranquillizing influences which belong to the Religion of Nature.