_Comus._ Perhaps forestalling night prevented them. 285

_Lady._ How easy my misfortune is to hit!

_Comus._ Imports their loss, beside the present need?

_Lady._ No less than if I should my brothers lose.

_Comus._ Were they of manly prime, or youthful bloom?

_Lady._ As smooth as Hebe's their unrazored lips. 290

_Comus._ Two such I saw, what time the labored ox In his loose traces from the furrow came, And the swinked hedger at his supper sat.

I saw them under a green mantling vine, That crawls along the side of yon small hill, 295 Plucking ripe cl.u.s.ters from the tender shoots; Their port was more than human, as they stood.

I took it for a faery vision Of some gay creatures of the element, That in the colors of the rainbow live, 300 And play i' the plighted clouds. I was awe-strook, And, as I pa.s.sed, I worshiped. If those you seek, It were a journey like the path to Heaven To help you find them.

_Lady._ Gentle villager, What readiest way would bring me to that place? 305

_Comus._ Due west it rises from this shrubby point.

_Lady._ To find out that, 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. 310

_Comus._ I know each lane, and every alley green, Dingle, or bushy dell, of this wild wood, And every bosky bourn from side to side, My daily walks and ancient neighborhood; And, if your stray attendance be yet lodged, 315 Or shroud within these limits, I shall know Ere morrow wake, or the low-roosted lark From her thatched pallet rouse. If otherwise, I can conduct you, Lady, to a low But loyal cottage, where you may be safe 320 Till further quest.

_Lady._ Shepherd, I take thy word, And trust thy honest-offered courtesy, Which oft is sooner found in lowly sheds, With smoky rafters, than in tapestry halls And courts of princes, where it first was named, 325 And yet is most pretended. In a place Less warranted than this, or less secure, I cannot be, that I should fear to change it.

Eye me, blest Providence, and square my trial To my proportioned strength! Shepherd, lead on.... 330

The Two Brothers.

_Eld. Bro._ Unm.u.f.fle, ye faint stars; and thou, fair moon, That wont'st to love the traveller's benison, Stoop thy pale visage through an amber cloud, And disinherit Chaos, that reigns here In double night of darkness and of shades; 335 Or, if your influence be quite dammed up With black usurping mists, some gentle taper, Though a rush-candle from the wicker hole Of some clay habitation, visit us With thy long levelled rule of streaming light, 340 And thou shalt be our star of Arcady, Or Tyrian Cynosure.

_Sec. Bro._ 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, 345 Or whistle from the lodge, or village c.o.c.k Count the night-watches to his feathery dames, 'Twould be some solace yet, some little cheering, In this close dungeon of innumerous boughs.

But, Oh, that hapless virgin, our lost sister! 350 Where may she wander now, whither betake her From the chill dew, amongst rude burs and 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. 355 What if in wild amazement and affright, Or, while we speak, within the direful grasp Of savage hunger, or of savage heat!

_Eld. Bro._ Peace, brother: be not over-exquisite To cast the fashion of uncertain evils; 360 For, grant they be so, while they rest unknown, 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! 365 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) 370 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 375 Oft seeks to sweet retired solitude, Where, with her best nurse, Contemplation, She plumes her feathers, and lets grow her wings, That, in the various bustle of resort, Were all to-ruffled, and sometimes impaired. 380 He that has light within his own clear breast May sit i' the 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.

_Sec. Bro._ 'Tis most true 385 That musing Meditation most affects The pensive secrecy of desert cell, 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, 390 His few books, or his beads, or maple dish, Or do his gray hairs any violence?

But Beauty, like the fair Hesperian tree Laden with blooming gold, had need the guard Of dragon-watch with unenchanted eye 395 To save her blossoms, and defend her fruit, From the rash hand of bold Incontinence.

You may as well spread out the unsunned heaps Of miser's treasure by an outlaw's den, And tell me it is safe, as bid me hope 400 Danger will wink on Opportunity, And let a single helpless maiden pa.s.s Uninjured in this wild surrounding waste.

Of night or loneliness it recks me not; I fear the dread events that dog them both, 405 Lest some ill-greeting touch attempt the person Of our unowned sister.

_Eld. Bro._ 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 410 Does arbitrate the 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 a hidden strength, 415 Which you remember not.

_Sec. Bro._ What hidden strength, Unless the strength of Heaven, if you mean that?

_Eld. Bro._ I mean that too, but yet a hidden strength, Which, if Heaven gave it, may be termed her own.

'Tis chast.i.ty, my brother, chast.i.ty: 420 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 chast.i.ty, 425 No savage fierce, bandite, or mountaineer, Will dare to soil her virgin purity.

Yea, there where very desolation dwells, By grots and caverns s.h.a.gged with horrid shades, She may pa.s.s on with unblenched majesty, 430 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 curfew time, 435 No goblin or swart faery 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 chast.i.ty? 440 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 nought The frivolous bolt of Cupid; G.o.ds and men 445 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, 450 And n.o.ble grace that dashed brute violence With sudden adoration and blank awe?

So dear to Heaven is saintly chast.i.ty That, when a soul is found sincerely so, A thousand liveried angels lackey her, 455 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 the outward shape, 460 The unpolluted temple of the mind, And turns it by degrees to the soul's essence, Till all be made immortal. But, when l.u.s.t, By unchaste looks, loose gestures, and foul talk, But most by lewd and lavish act of sin, 465 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 470 Oft seen in charnel-vaults and sepulchres, Lingering and sitting by a new-made grave, As loth to leave the body that it loved, And linked itself by carnal sensualty To a degenerate and degraded state. 475

_Sec. Bro._ 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.

_Eld. Bro._ List! list! I hear 480 Some far-off hallo break the silent air.

_Sec. Bro._ Methought so too; what should it be?

_Eld. Bro._ For certain, Either some one, like us, night-foundered here, Or else some neighbor woodman, or, at worst, Some roving robber calling to his fellows. 485

_Sec. Bro._ Heaven help my sister! Again, again, and near!

Best draw, and stand upon our guard.

_Eld. Bro._ I'll hallo.

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 hallo I should know. What are you? speak. 490 Come not too near; you fall on iron stakes else.

_Spir._ What voice is that? my young lord? speak again.

_Sec. Bro._ O brother, 'tis my father's Shepherd, sure.

_Eld. Bro._ Thyrsis! whose artful strains have oft delayed The huddling brook to hear his madrigal, 495 And sweetened every musk-rose of the dale.

How camest thou here, good swain? Hath any ram Slipped from the fold, or young kid lost his dam, Or straggling wether the pent flock forsook?

How could'st thou find this dark sequestered nook? 500

_Spir._ O my loved master's heir, and his 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 505 To this my errand, and the care it brought.

But, oh! my virgin Lady, where is she?

How chance she is not in your company?

_Eld. Bro._ To tell thee sadly, Shepherd, without blame Or our neglect, we lost her as we came. 510

_Spir._ Ay me unhappy! then my fears are true.

_Eld. Bro._ What fears, good Thyrsis? Prithee briefly shew.

_Spir._ I'll tell ye. 'Tis not vain or fabulous (Though so esteemed by shallow ignorance) What the sage poets, taught by the heavenly Muse, 515 Storied of old in high immortal verse Of dire Chimeras and enchanted isles, And rifted rocks whose entrance leads to h.e.l.l; For such there be, but unbelief is blind.

Within the navel of this hideous wood, 520 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, 525 With many murmurs mixed, whose pleasing poison The visage quite transforms of him that drinks, And the inglorious likeness of a beast Fixes instead, unmoulding reason's mintage Charactered in the face. This have I learnt 530 Tending my flocks hard by i' the hilly crofts That brow this bottom glade; whence night by night He and his monstrous rout are heard to howl Like stabled wolves, or tigers at their prey, Doing abhorred rites to Hecate 535 In their obscured haunts of inmost bowers.

Yet have they many baits and guileful spells To inveigle and invite the unwary sense Of them that pa.s.s unweeting by the way.

This evening late, by then the chewing flocks 540 Had ta'en their supper on the savory herb Of knot-gra.s.s dew-besprent, and were in fold, I sat me down to watch upon a bank With ivy canopied, and interwove With flaunting honeysuckle, and began, 545 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; 550 At which I ceased, and listened them a while, Till an unusual stop of sudden silence Gave respite to the drowsy-flighted steeds That draw the litter of close-curtained Sleep.