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COMUS.

But where they are, and why they came not back,

Is now the labor of my thoughts; 'tis likeliest

They had engaged their wandering steps too far;

And envious darkness, ere they could return, Had stole them from me. Else, O thievish Night,

Why shouldst thou, but for some felonious

end,

In thy dark lantern thus close up the stars, That nature hung in heaven, and filled their lamps

With everlasting oil, to give due light
To the misled and lonely traveller?
This is the place, as well as I may guess,
Whence even now the tumult of loud mirth
Was rife, and perfect in my listening ear;
Yet nought but single darkness do I find.
What might this be? A thousand fantasies
Begin to throng into my memory,

Of calling shapes, and beckoning shadows. dire,

And airy tongues, that syllable men's names
On sands, and shores, and desert wildernesses.
These thoughts may startle well, but not as-
tound

The virtuous mind, that ever walks attended
By a strong-siding champion, Conscience.
O welcome pure-eyed Faith, white-handed
Hope-

Thou hovering angel, girt with golden wings-
And thou, unblemished form of Chastity!
I see ye visibly, and now believe

That he, the Supreme Good, t' whom all things ill

Are but as slavish officers of vengeance, Would send a glistering guardian, if need

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SONG.

553

SWEET Echo, sweetest nymph—that livest

unseen

Within thy airy shell,

By slow Meander's margent green
And in the violet-embroidered vale

Where the love-lorn nightingale
Nightly to thee her sad song mourneth well-
Canst thou not tell me of a gentle pair
That likest thy Narcissus are?
O, if thou have

Hid them in some flowery cave,

Tell me but where,

Sweet queen of parly, daughter of the sphere!

So mayst thou be translated to the skies, And give resounding grace to all heaven's harmonies.

Enter COMUS.

Cом. Can any mortal mixture of earth's mould

Breathe such divine, enchanting ravishment?
Sure something holy lodges in that breast,
And with these raptures moves the vocal air
To testify his hidden residence.

How sweetly did they float upon the wings
Of silence, through the empty-vaulted night—
At every fall smoothing the raven down
Of darkness till it smiled! I oft have heard
My mother Circe with the Sirens three,
Amidst the flowery-kirtled Naiades
Culling their potent herbs and baleful drugs,
Who, as they sung, would take the prisoned
soul,

And lap it in Elysium; Scylla wept,

And chid her barking waves into attention,
And fell Charybdis murmured soft applause;
Yet they in pleasing slumber lulled the sense,
And in sweet madness robbed it of itself.
But such a sacred and home-felt delight,
Such sober certainty of waking bliss,
I never heard till now. I'll speak to her,
And she shall be my queen. Hail, foreign
wonder!

Whom, certain, these rough shades did never breed,

Unless the goddess that in rural shrine Dwellest here with Pan or Silvan, by blest

song

It were a journey like the path to heaven

Forbidding every bleak unkindly fog

To touch the prosperous growth of this tall To help you find them.

wood!

LAD. Gentle villager,

LAD. Nay, gentle Shepherd, ill is lost that What readiest way would bring me to that

praise

That is addressed to unattending ears;
Not any boast of skill, but extreme shift
How to regain my severed company,
Compelled me to awake the courteous Echo,
To give me answer from her mossy couch.
COM. What chance, good lady, hath bereft
you thus?

LAD. Dim darkness, and this leafy laby-
rinth.

place?

COM. Due west it rises from this shrubby point.

LAD. To find that out, good shepherd, I

suppose,

In such a scant allowance of star-light,
Would overtask the best land-pilot's art,
Without the sure guess of well-practised feet.
COм. I know each lane, and every alley
green,

Coм. Could that divide you from near ush- Dingle or bushy dell, of this wild wood,

ering guides?

LAD. They left me weary on a grassy turf.
COм. By falsehood, or discourtesy? or why?
LAD. To seek i' th' valley some cool friendly
spring.

And every bosky bourn from side to side-
My daily walks and ancient neighborhood;
And if your stray-attendants be yet lodged,
Or shroud within these limits, I shall know
Ere morrow wake, or the low-roosted lark

Coм. And left your fair side all unguarded, From her thatched pallat rouse; if otherwise,
lady?
I can conduct you, lady, to a low
LAD. They were but twain, and purposed But loyal cottage, where you may be safe

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Coм. Were they of manly prime, or youth- Less warranted than this, or less secure,

ful bloom?

I cannot be, that I should fear to change it.

LAD. As smooth as Hebe's their unrazored Eye me, blest Providence, and square my lips.

trial

COM. Two such I saw, what time the la- To my proportioned strength. Shepherd,

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And as I passed, I worshipped. If those you Though a rush candle from the wicker-hole

seek,

Of some clav habitation, visit us

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With thy long-levelled rule of streaming She plumes her feathers, and lets grow her

light;

And thou shalt be our star of Arcady,

Or Tyrian cynosure.

2 BR. Or if our eyes

Be barred that happiness, might we but hear The folded flocks penned in their wattled cotes,

Or sound of pastoral reed with oaten stops, Or whistle from the lodge, or village cock Count the night watches to his feathery dames,

wings,

That in the various bustle of resort
Were all-to ruffled, and sometimes impaired.
He that has light within his own clear breast
May sit i' th' centre, and enjoy bright day;
But he that hides a dark soul, and foul
thoughts,

Benighted walks under the mid-day sun;
Himself is his own dungeon.

2 BR. 'Tis most true,
That musing Meditation most affects

'T would be some solace yet, some little cheer- The pensive secrecy of desert cell,

ing

In this close dungeon of innumerous boughs. But O that hapless virgin, our lost sister! Where may she wander now, whither betake

her

Far from the cheerful haunt of men and herds,
And sits as safe as in a senate house;
For who would rob a hermit of his weeds,
His few books, or his beads, or maple dish,
Or do his gray hairs any violence?

From the chill dew, among rude burs and But Beauty, like the fair Hesperian tree

thistles?

Perhaps some cold bank is her bolster now;
Or 'gainst the rugged bark of some broad elm
Leans her unpillowed head, fraught with sad
fears;

What if in wild amazement and affright,
Or, while we speak, within the direful grasp
Of savage hunger, or of savage heat?

1 BR. Peace, brother! be not over-exquisite

To cast the fashion of uncertain evils;

Laden with blooming gold, had need the

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For grant they be so-while they rest un- Uninjured in this wild surrounding waste.

known,

What need a man forestall his date of grief,
And run to meet what he would most avoid?
Or if they be but false alarms of fear,
How bitter is such self-delusion!
I do not think my sister so to seek,
Or so unprincipled in virtue's book,

And the sweet peace that goodness bosoms ever,

As that the single want of light and noise
(Not being in danger, as I trust she is not)
Could stir the constant mood of her calm
thoughts,

And put them into misbecoming plight.
Virtue could see to do what virtue would
By her own radiant light, though sun and

moon

Were in the flat sea sunk. And Wisdom's self
Oft seeks to sweet retired solitude,
Where, with her best nurse, Contemplation,

Of night, or loneliness, it recks me not;

I fear the dread events that dog them both, Lest some ill-greeting touch attempt the per

son

Of our unowned sister.

1 BR. I do not, brother,
Infer as if I thought my sister's state
Secure without all doubt, or controversy;
Yet where an equal poise of hope and fear
Does arbitrate th' event, my nature is
That I incline to hope, rather than fear,
And gladly banish squint Suspicion.
My sister is not so defenceless left
As you imagine; she has hidden strength,
Which you remember not.

2 RR. What hidden strength, Unless the strength of Heaven, if you mean that?

1 BR. I mean that too, but yet a hidden strength,

Which, if Heaven gave it, may be termed her By unchaste looks, loose gestures, and foul

own:

'Tis Chastity, my brother, Chastity:
She that has that is clad in complete steel,
And like a quivered nymph with arrows keen
May trace huge forests, and unharbored
heaths,

Infamous hills and sandy perilous wilds,
Where, through the sacred rays of Chastity,
No savage fierce, bandit, or mountaineer,
Will dare to soil her virgin purity;
Yea there, where very Desolation dwells
By grots, and caverns shagged with horrid
shades,

She may pass on with unblenched majesty,
Be it not done in pride, or in presumption.
Some say no evil thing that walks by night,
In fog, or fire, by lake, or moorish fen,
Blue, meagre hag, or stubborn, unlaid ghost,
That breaks his magic chains at curfeu time,
No goblin, or swart fairy of the mine,
Hath hurtful power o'er true virginity.
Do ye believe me yet, or shall I call
Antiquity from the old schools of Greece
To testify the arms of Chastity?

Hence had the huntress Dian her dread bow,
Fair silver-shafted queen, forever chaste,
Wherewith she tamed the brinded lioness
And spotted mountain pard, but set at naught
The frivolous bolt of Cupid; gods and men
Feared her stern frown, and she was queen o'

the woods.

What was that snaky-headed Gorgon shield That wise Minerva wore, unconquered virgin,

Wherewith she freezed her foes to congealed stone,

But rigid looks of chaste austerity,

And noble grace that dashed brute violence
With sudden adoration, and blank awe?
So dear to Heaven 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 heavenly habitants
Begin to cast a beam on th' outward shape,
The unpolluted temple of the mind,
And turns it by degrees to the soul's essence,
Till all be made immortal; but when Lust,

talk,

But most by lewd and lavish act of sin,
Lets in Defilement to the inward parts,
The soul grows clotted by contagion,
Imbodies and imbrutes, till she quite lose
The divine property of her first being.
Such are those thick and gloomy shadows
damp,

Oft seen in charnel vaults, and sepulchres,
Lingering, and sitting by a new-made grave,
As loath to leave the body that it loved,
And linked itself by carnal sensuality
To a degenerate and degraded state.

2 BR. How charming is divine philosophy! Not harsh, and crabbed, as dull fools suppose, But musical as is Apollo's lute,

And a perpetual feast of nectared sweets,
Where no crude surfeit reigns.

1 BR. List! list! I hear

Some far off halloo break the silent air. 2 BR. Methought so, too; what should it be?

1 BR. For certain

Either some one like us, night-foundered here, Or else some neighbor wood-man; or, at

worst,

Some roving robber calling to his fellows. 2 BR. Heaven keep my sister. Again, again, and near;

Best draw, and stand upon our guard.

1 BR. I'll halloo;

If he be friendly, he comes well; if not, Defence is a good cause, and Heaven be for

us.

The attendant SPIRIT, habited like a Shepherd That halloo I should know, what are you? speak;

Come not too near, you fall on iron stakes else.

SPI. What voice is that? my young lord? speak again.

2 BR. O brother, 't is my father's shepherd,

sure.

1 BR. Thyrsis? whose artful strains have

oft delayed

The huddling brook to hear his madrigal, And sweetened every musk-rose of the dale. How cam'st thou here, good swain? hath

any ram

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Slipt from the fold, or young kid lost his Yet have they many baits, and guileful spells,

dam,

Or straggling wether the pent flock forsook? How could'st thou find this dark sequestered nook?

To inveigle and invite th' unwary sense
Of them that pass unweeting by the way.
This evening late, by then the chewing flocks
Had ta'en their supper on the savory herb

SPI. O my loved master's heir, and his Of knot-grass dew-besprint, and were in fold,

next joy,

I came not here on such a trivial toy
As a strayed ewe, or to pursue the stealth
Of pilfering wolf; not all the fleecy wealth
That doth enrich these downs is worth a
thought

To this my errand, and the care it brought.
But, O my virgin Lady, where is she?
How chance she is not in your company?
1 BR. To tell thee sadly, shepherd, without
blame,

Or our neglect we lost her as we came.
SPI. Aye me unhappy! then my fears are

true.

I sat me down to watch upon a bank
With ivy canopied, and interwove
With flaunting honey-suckle, and began,
Wrapt in a pleasing fit of melancholy,
To meditate my rural minstrelsy,
Till Fancy had her fill; but ere a close,
The wonted roar was up amidst the woods,
And filled the air with barbarous dissonance;
At which I ceased, and listened them awhile,
Till an unusual stop of sudden silence
Gave respite to the drowsy flighted steeds
That draw the litter of close-curtained Sleep;
At last a soft and solemn breathing sound
Rose like a steam of rich distilled perfumes,

1 BR. What fears, good Thyrsis? Prithee And stole upon the air, that even Silence briefly shew.

SPI. I'll tell ye; 't is not vain or fabulous
(Though so esteemed by shallow ignorance)
What the sage poets, taught by th' heavenly
Muse,

Storied of old in high immortal verse,
Of dire chimeras and enchanted isles,

Was took ere she was ware, and wished she
might

Deny her nature, and be never more,
Still to be so displaced. I was all ear,
And took in strains that might create a soul
Under the ribs of Death; but O, ere long,
Too well I did perceive it was the voice

And rifted rocks whose entrance leads to Of my most honored Lady, your dear sister.

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For such there be, but unbelief is blind.
Within the navel of this hideous wood,
Immured in cypress shades a sorcerer dwells,
Of Bacchus and of Circe born, great Comus,
Deep skilled in all his mother's witcheries;
And here to every thirsty wanderer

By sly enticement gives his baneful cup,
With many murmurs mixed, whose pleasing
poison

Amazed I stood, harrowed with grief and

fear;

And O poor hapless nightingale, thought I, How sweet thou sing'st, how near the deadly snare!

Then down the lawns I ran with headlong haste,

Through paths and turnings often trod by day,

Till guided by mine ear I found the place, The visage quite transforms of him that Where that damned wizard, hid in sly dis

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