And makes one blot of all the air!

Stay thy cloudy ebon chair,

Wherein thou ridest with Hecat', and befriend

Us thy vowed priests, till utmost end

Of all thy dues be done, and none left out;

Ere the blabbing eastern scout,

The nice Morn on the Indian steep,

From her cabined loop-hole peep,

And to the tell-tale Sun descry

Our concealed solemnity.

Come, knit hands, and beat the ground

In a light fantastic round.

The Measure.

140

Break off, break off! I feel the different pace
Of some chaste footing near about this ground.
Run to your shrouds within these brakes and trees ;
Our number may affright.

(For so I can distinguish by
Benighted in these woods!

Some virgin sure

mine art)

Now to my charms, 150

And to my wily trains: I shall ere long
Be well stocked with as fair a herd as grazed
About my mother Circe. Thus I hurl
My dazzling spells into the spongy air,

Of power to cheat the eye with blear illusion,
And give it false presentments, 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.
I, 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

160

Whom thrift keeps up about his country gear.
But here she comes; I fairly step aside,
And hearken, if I may her business hear.

The LADY enters.

Lady. This way the noise was, if mine ear be true,
My best guide now. Methought it was the sound
Of riot and ill-managed merriment,

Such as the jocund flute or gamesome pipe
Stirs up among the loose unlettered hinds,
When, for 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, oh! 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,
Stepped, 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 grey-hooded Even,
Like a sad votarist in palmer's weed,

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180

Rose from the hindmost wheels of Phoebus' wain. 190
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 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?

200

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 astound 210
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

220

That He, the Supreme Good, to whom all things ill
Are but as slavish officers of vengeance,
Would send a glistering guardian, if need were,
To keep my life and honour unassailed.
Was I deceived, 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 cannot hallo to my brothers, but

Such noise as I can make to be heard farthest
I'll venture; for my new-enlivened spirits
Prompt me, and they perhaps are not far off.

Song.

Sweet Echo, sweetest nymph, that liv'st unseen

Within thy airy shell

By slow Meander's margent green,

And in the violet-embroidered vale

230

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,

240

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 harmonies!

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 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,

250

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,

260

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 blest song

VOL I.

N

Forbidding every bleak unkindly fog

To touch the prosperous growth of this tall wood. 270
Lady. 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 severed company,
Compelled me to awake the courteous Echo
To give me answer from her mossy couch.

Comus. What chance, good Lady, hath bereft you thus ?

Lady. Dim darkness and this leavy labyrinth. Comus. Could that divide you from near-ushering guides?

280

Lady. They left me weary on a grassy turf. Comus. By falsehood, or discourtesy, or why? Lady. To seek i'the valley some cool friendly spring. Comus. And left your fair side all unguarded, Lady? Lady. They were but twain, and purposed quick return.

Comus. Perhaps forestalling night prevented them. 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 ofmanly prime, or youthful bloom?
Lady. As smooth as Hebe's their unrazored lips.
Comus. Two such I saw, what time the laboured 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,
Plucking ripe clusters 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 colours of the rainbow live,

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300

And play i' the plighted clouds. I was awe-strook,