About my mother Circe. Thus I hurl
My dazzling spells into the spongy air,
Of power to chat the eye with blear illusion,
And give it false presentiments, lest the place
And my quaint habits breed astonishment,
And put the damsel to suspicious flight;
Which must not be, for that's against my course:
1, under fair pretence of friendly ends,
And well placed words of glozing courtesy,
Baited with reasons not unplausible,
Wind me into the easy-hearted man,

And hug him into snares. When once her eye
Hath met the virtue of this magic dust,
I shall appear some harmless villager,
Whom tarift keeps up about his country gear.
But here she comes. I fairly step aside,
And hearken, if I may, her business here.

The LADY enters.

On sands, and shores, and desert wildernesses.
These thoughts may startle well, but not astound
The virtuous mind, that ever walks attended
By a strong siding champion, Conscience.
O welcome, pure ey'd Faith, white handed Hope.
Thou hovering angel, girt with golden wings
And thou, unblemish'd form of Chastity!
I see ye visibly, and now believe

That He, the Supreme Good, to whom all things
ill

Are but as slavish officers of vengeance,
Would send a glistening guardian, if need were,
To keep my life and honour unassail'd.
Was I deceiv'd, or did a sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining on the night?

I did not err: there does a sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining on the night,
And casts a gleam over this tufted grove.
I can not halloo to my brothers, but

SONG.

Sweet Echo, sweetest nymph, that liv'st, unseen.
Within thy airy shell,

By slow Meander's margent green,
And in the violet-embroider'd 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 parley, daughter of the sphere
So may'st thou be translated to the skies,
And give resounding grace to all Heaven's har
monies.

Lady. This way the noise was, if mine ear be Such noise as I can make, to be heard farthest, true, I'll venture; for my new-enlivened spirits My best guide now. Methought it was the sound Prompt me; and they, perhaps, are not far off. Of riot and ill managed merriment, Such was the jocund flute, or gamesome pipe, Stirs up among the loose, unlettered hinds; When from their teeming flocks, and granges full, In wanton dance they praise the bounteous Pan, And thank the gods amiss. I should be loth To meet the rudeness and swilled insolence Of such late wassailers; yet O! where else, Shall I inform my unacquainted feet, In the blind mazes of this tangled wood? My brothers, when they saw me wearied out With this long way, resolving here to lodge, Under the spreading favour of these pines, Stept, as they said, to the next thicket side, To bring me berries, or such cooling fruit As the kind hospitable woods provide. They left me then, when the gray-hooded Even, Like a sad votarist in palmer's weed, Rose from the hindmost wheels of Phoebus' wain: But where they are, and why they came not back, Is now the labour 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 should'st 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

Enter COMUS.

Comus. 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 have oft heard
My mother Circe, with the Syrens 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 lull'd 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,
Dwell'st here with Pan, or Sylvan, by bless'd song
Forbidding every bleak, unkindly fog
To touch the prosperous growth of this tall wood.
Lad. Nay, gentle shepherd, ill is lost that praise,
That is addressed to unattending ears:
Not any boast of skill, but extreme shift
How to regain my sever'd company,
Compelled me to awake the courteous Echo,
To give me answer from her mossy couch.

And every bosky bourn from side to side,
My daily walks and ancient neighbourhood;
And if your stray attendance be yet lodged,
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
Till further quest.

Lad. 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
In courts of princes, where it first was named,
And yet is most pretended: in a place
Less warranted than this, or less secure,

Com. What chance, good lady, hath bereft you I can not be, that I should fear to change it,—

thus?

Lad. Dim darkness and this leafy labyrinth.

Com. Could that divide you from near ushering
guides?

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

Eye me, blessed Providence, and square my trial To my proportioned strength.-Shepherd, lead on. [Exeunt.

Enter the Two BROTHERS.

El. Br. Unmuffle, ye faint stars; and thou, fai moon,

That wont'st to love the traveller's benison, Com. And left your fair side all unguarded, Stoop thy pale visage through an amber cloud, Lady? And disinherit Chaos, that reigns here

Lad. They were but twain, and purpos'd quick In double night of darkness and of shades,

return.

Com. Perhaps forestalling night prevented them.
Lad. How easy my misfortune is to hit!
Com. Imports their loss, beside the present need?
Lad. No less than if I should my brothers lose.
Com. Were they of manly prime, or youthful
bloom?

Lad. As smooth as Hebe's their unrazor'd lips.

Or, if your influence be quite dammed up
With black usurping mists, some gentler taper,
Through a rush-candle from the wicker hole
Of some clay habitation, visit us

With thy long-levelled rule of streaming light,
And thou shalt be our star of Arcady,
Or Tyrian Cynosure.

Sec. Br. Or, if our eyes

Com. Two such I saw, what time the labour'd ox | Be barred that happiness, might we but hear

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,
Plucking ripe clusters from the tender shoots.
Their port was more than human, as they stood:
I took it for a fairy vision

Of some gay creatures of the element,
That in the colours of the rainbow live,
And play i' the plighted clouds. I was awe-struck,
And, as I pass'd, I worshipp'd: if those you seek,
It were a journey like the path to Heaven,
To help you find them.

Lad. Gentle villager,

What readiest way would bring me to that place?
Com. Due west it rises from this shrubby point.
Lad. 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 fect.
Com. I know each lane, and every alley green,
Dingle, or bushy dell of this wild wood,

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,
'Twould be some solace yet, some little cheering,
In this close dungeon of innumerous boughs.
But, O that hapless virgin, or lost Sister!
Where may she wander now, whither betake her
From the chill dew, among rude burs and thistles1
Perhaps some cold bank is her bolster now,
Or 'gainst the rugged bark of some broad elm
Leans her unpillow'd 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?

El. Br. Peace, Brother; be not over exquisite
To cast the fashion of uncertain evils:
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!

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,
She plumes her feathers, and lets grow her wings,
That in the various bustle of resort
Were all too ruffled, and sometimes impaired.
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. Br. 'Tis most true,

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 the 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?
But Beauty, like the fair Hesperian tree
Laden with blooming gold, had need the guard
Of dragon-watch with unenchanted eye,
To save her blossoms, and defend her fruit,
From the rash hand of bold Incontinence.
You may as well spread out the unsunn'd heaps
Of misers' treasure by an outlaw's den,
And tell me it is safe, as bid me hope
Danger will wink on Opportunity,
And let a single helpless maiden pass
Uninjured in this wild surrounding waste.
Of night, or loneliness, it recks me not;
I fear the dread events that dog them both,
Lest some ill-greeting touch attempt the person
Of our unowned Sister.

El. 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 a hidden strength
Which you remember not.

Sec. Br. What hidden strength,

Unless the strength of Heaven, if you mean that? Et. Br. I mean that too, but yet a hidden strength,

She, that has that, is clad in complete steel;
And, like a quivered Nymph with arrows keen,
May trace huge forests, and unharboured 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 curfew 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, for ever chaste,
Wherewith she tam'd the brinded lioness
And spotted mountain-pard, but set at nought
The frivolous bolt of Cupid: gods and men
Fear'd her stern frown, and she was queen o' tre
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 the 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,
By unchaste looks, loose gestures, and foul 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 lov'd,
And link'd itself by carnal sensuality
To a degenerate and degraded state.

Sec. Br. How charming is divine Philosophy! Which, if Heaven gave it, may be termed her own: Not harsh, and crabbed, as dull fools suppose, Tis Chastity, my Brother, Chastity;

But musical as is Apollo's lute;

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

El. Br. List, list; I hear

Some far-off halloo break the silent air.

With many murmurs mix'd, whose pleasing poison
The visage quite transforms of him that drinks,
And the inglorious likeness of a beast
Fixes instead, unmoulding reason's mintage

Sec. B. Methought so too; what should it be? Character'd in the face: this have I learnt

El. B. For certain

Either some one like us night-founder'd here,
Or else some neighbour woodman, or, at worst,
Some roving robber calling to his fellows.

Sec. B. Heaven keep my Sister! Again, again,
and near!

Best draw, and stand upon our guard.

El. B. I'll halloo:

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

Enter 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.
Spir. What voice ie that? my young Lord;
speak again.

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 Hecaté

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 pass unweeting by the way.
This evening late, by them the chewing flocks
Had ta'en their supper on the savoury herb
Of knot-grass 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,
Wrapt in a pleasing fit of melancholy,

Sec. B. O Brother, 'tis my father's shepherd, To meditate my rural minstrelsy

sure.

Till Fancy had her fill; but, ere a close,

El. B. Thyrsis? Whose artful strains have oft The wonted roar was up amidst the woods,

delay'd

The huddling brook to hear his madrigal,
And sweeten'd every muskrose of the dale?
How cam'st thou here, good swain? hath any ram
Slipt from the fold, or young kid lost his dam,
Or straggling wether the pent flock forsook?
How could'st thou find this dark sequester'd nook?
Spir. O my lov'd 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
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?
El. B. To tell thee sadly, Shepherd, without
blame,

Or our neglect, we lost her as we came.

Spir. Ay me unhappy! then my fears are true.
El. B. What fears, good Thyrsis? Pr'ythee
briefly shew.

Spir. I'll tell ye; 'tis not vain or fabulous,
(Though so esteem'd by shallow ignorance)
What the sage poets, taught th' heavenly Muse,
Storied of old in high immortal verse,
Of dire chimeras, and enchanted isles,
And rifted rocks whose entrance leads to Hell;
For such there be, but unbelief is blind.

Within the navel of this hideous wood,
Immur'd in cypress shades a sorcerer dwells,
Of Bacchus and of Circe born, great Comus,
Deep skill'd in all his mother's witcheries;
And here to every thirsty wanderer

By sly enticement gives his baneful cup,

And filled the air with barbarous dissonance;
At which I ceased, and listened them a while,
Till an unusual stop of sudden silence
Gave respite to the drowsy frighted steeds,
That draw the litter of close-curtain'd Sleep:
At last a soft and solemn-breathing sound
Rose like a steam of rich distill'd perfumes,
And stole upon the air, that even Silence
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
Of my most honoured Lady, your dear Sister.
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,
Where that damned wizard, hid in sly disguise,
(For so by certain signs I knew) had met
Already, ere my best speed could prevent,
The aidless innocent Lady, his wished prey;
Who gently asked if he had seen such two,
Supposing him some neighbour villager.
Longer I durst not stay, but soon I guessed
Ye were the two she meant; with that I sprung
Into swift flight, till I had found you here;
But further know I not.

Sec. Br. O night, and shades'
How are ye joined with Hell ir tripe kno

Which erring men call Chance, this I hold firm,- Till now that this extremity compelled:

Virtue may be assailed, but never hurt,
Surprised by unjust force, but not enthralled;
Yea, even that, which mischief meant most harm,
Shall in the happy trial prove most glory:
But evil on itself shall back recoil,

And mix no more with goodness; what at last
Gathered like scum, and settled to itself.
It shall be in eternal restless change

Self-fed, and self-consumed: if this fail,
The pillared firmament is rottenness,

And earth's base built on stubble.-But come, let's But seize his wand; though he and his cursed crew