While lab'ring oxen, spent with toil and heat,
In their loose traces from the field retreat.
What time the labour'd ox

In his loose traces from the furrow came.

Nor rivers winding through the vales below,
So sweetly warble, or so smoothly flow.
Fountains, and ye that warble, as ye flow.

In some still ev'ning, when the whisp❜ring breeze
Pants on the leaves, and dies upon the trees.
Or usher'd with a shower still,

When the gust hath blown his fill,
Ending on the rustling leaves.

Crowned with tufted trees.

To happy Convents, bosom'd deep in vines.

The tufted trees.

And spiry tops, the tufted trees above,

Of Circe's palace bosom'd in the grove.
Towers and battlements it sees

Bosom'd high in tufted trees.

The weeping amber, or the balmy tree.

Groves whose rich trees wept odorous gums and balm.

The yellow carp, in scales bedropped with gold.
Shew to the sun their waved coats dropt with gold. [Of fish.]

Pastorals, i. 23.
Nightingale sonnet, I.

Ib. i. 31.

Odyssey, v. 94.
Lycidas, 145.
Pastorals, ii. 32.
Penseroso, 172.

Ib. ii. 50.
Lycidas, 34.

Ib. iii. 61-2.

Comus, 291-2.

Ib. iv. 3-4.
P. L. v. 195.

Ib. iv. 79-80.

Penseroso, 127-9.

Windsor Forest, 27.
Dunciad, iv. 301.
Odyssey, v. 513.

Odyssey, x. 175-6.

Allegro, 77-8.

Windsor Forest, 30.
P. L. iv. 248.

Ib. 144.
P. L. vii 406.

1 Most of these parallels are selected from those given in the Elwin-Courthope edition of Pope, Gilbert Wakefield's edition of Pope's Homer, and Mary Leather's article, Pope as a Student of Milton, in Englische Studien, xxv. 398–410; some I have myself noted. None of the Iliad or Odyssey parallels can be explained by similarities between Homer and Milton; most of the passages, indeed, owe nothing to Homer but are original with Pope.

Or those green isles, where headlong Titan steeps
His hissing axle in th' Atlantic deeps.
And the gilded car of day

His glowing axle doth allay

In the steep Atlantic stream.

Mean time the vig'rous dancers beat the ground.
Come, knit hands, and beat the ground
In a light fantastic round.

The dapper elves their moon-light sports pursue.
The fairies... So featly tripped.

Trip the pert faeries and the dapper elves.

Full oft I drain'd the spicy nut-brown bowl.
Then to the spicy nut-brown ale.

In air self-balanced hung the globe below.
Let earth unbalanced from her orbit fly.
And Earth, self-balanced, on her centre hung.
On Doric pillars of white marble reared,
Crowned with an architrave of antique mold,
And sculpture rising on the roughened gold.
With pomp of various architrave o'erlay'd.
Doric pillars overlaid

With golden architrave; nor did there want
Cornice or frieze, with bossy sculptures graven.
The growing tow'rs like exhalations rise.
A fabric huge Rose like an exhalation.

Barbaric gold.

Barbaric pearl and gold.

Wide vaults appear, and roofs of fretted gold.
The roof was fretted gold.

Ere warning Phoebus touched his trembling ears.
Phoebus replied, and touch'd my trembling ears.
Amaranthine bow'rs.

Blissful bowers Of amaranthine shade.

Vacation Exercise, 92–7.

(Of heaven in each case.)

And those love-darting eyes must roll no more.
Love-darting eyes, or tresses like the morn.

He from thick films shall purge the visual ray.
His visual ball.

Sharpen'd his visual ray.

St. Cecilia, 76.

P. L. đi. 77–8.

Elegy to an Unfortunate Lady, 34.
Comus, 753.

Messiah, 39.

Odyssey, ix. 454.

P. L. iii. 620; cf. xi. 415.

(The first case was pointed out by Pope.)

He wipes the tears for ever from our eyes.
All tears are wiped for ever from all eyes.
And wipe the tears for ever from his eyes.

Messiah (1st ed.), 46.
Epilogue to Satires, i. 103.
Lycidas, 181.

("See Milton, lib. vi. 330, of Satan cut asunder by the Angel Michael": Pope's note.)

The chequer'd shade.
In the chequer'd shade.
In the chequer'd shade.

Or in the golden cowslip's velvet head.
O'er the cowslip's velvet head.

But vindicate the ways of God to man.
And justify the ways of God to men.

Yonder argent fields above. [Of the firmament.]

Those argent fields. [Of the moon.]

Favoured man by touch ethereal slain.
With touch ethereal of Heaven's fiery rod.

To Mr. Gay, 7.

Dunciad, iv. 125.

Allegro, 96.

Lamentation of Glumdalclitch, 48.
Comus, 898.

Next his grim idol smeared with human blood.
Dropping with Infants' blood, and Mothers' tears.
First, Moloch, horrid king, besmear'd with blood
Of human sacrifice, and parents' tears ...
Their children's cries uuheard, that pass'd through fire
To his grim idol.

Essay on Man, i. 16.
P. L. i. 26.

Ib. i. 41.

P. L. iii. 460.

Ib. iii. 68.
Samson, 549.

Ib. iii. 266.
Dunciad, iv. 142.

P. L. i. 392-6.

(The second case was pointed out by Pope.)

Ye little stars! hide your diminish'd rays.
All the stars Hide their diminish'd heads.
And bring all Paradise before your eye.
And bring all Heaven before mine eyes.

To make men happy, and to keep them so.
What makes a nation happy, and keeps it so.
To see themselves fall endlong into beasts.
And downward fell into a grovelling swine.

Moral Essays, iii. 282.
P. L. iv. 34-5.

Ib. iv. 148.
Penseroso, 166.

Horace's Epistles, I. vi. 2.
P. R. iv. 362.

Satires of Donne, iv. 167.
Comus, 53.

(Of Circe's guests in each case.)

To wholesome solitude, the nurse of sense:
Where Contemplation prunes her ruffled wings.

And Wisdom's self

Oft seeks to sweet retired solitude,

Where, with her best nurse, Contemplation,

She plumes her feathers, and lets grow her wings,
That... Were all-to ruffled.

And opes the temple of Eternity.

That opes the palace of Eternity.

Daughter of Chaos and eternal Night.

Dread Chaos, and eternal Night.

I sung of Chaos and eternal Night.

Here pleas'd behold her mighty wings outspread.
With mighty wings outspread.

In clouded Majesty here Dulness shone.
The Moon, Rising in clouded majesty.

(Pointed out by Pope.)

He roll'd his eyes that witness'd huge dismay.
Round he throws his baleful eyes,
That witness'd huge affliction and dismay.

Ib. iv. 185-6.

Comus, 375-80.

Epilogue to Satires, ii. 235.
Comus, 14.

Dunciad, i. 12.

Ib. iv. 2.

P. L. iii. 18.

Ib. i. 27.
P. L. i. 20.

Ib. i. 45.

P. L. iv. 606-7.

Ib. (1st ed.), i. 105.

P. L. i. 56-7.