Sonnet LXXIV.

[1]In sultry noon when youthful MILTON lay,         Supinely stretch'd beneath the poplar shade,         Lur'd by his Form, a fair Italian Maid         Steals from her loitering chariot, to survey      The slumbering charms, that all her soul betray.         Then, as coy fears th' admiring gaze upbraid,         Starts; - and these lines, with hurried pen pourtray'd,         Slides in his half-clos'd hand; - and speeds away. -      "Ye eyes, ye human stars! - if, thus conceal'd         By Sleep's soft veil, ye agitate my heart,         Ah! what had been its conflict if reveal'd      Your rays had shone!" - Bright Nymph, thy strains impart         Hopes, that impel the graceful Bard to rove,         Seeking thro' Tuscan Vales his visionary Love.     1: This romantic circumstance of our great Poet's juvenility was inserted, as a well known fact, in one of the General Evening Posts in the Spring 1789, and it was there supposed to have formed the first impulse of his Italian journey.