P

Wherewith she sits on diamond rocks,
Sleeking her soft alluring locks;
By all the nymphs that nightly dance
Upon thy streams with wily glance;
Rise, rise, and heave thy rosy head,
From thy coral-paven bed,
And bridle in thy headlong wave,
Till thou our summons answer'd have.

Listen, and save!

[SABRINA rises, attended by Water Nymphs, and sings.]

By the rushy-fringed bank",

Where grows the willow, and the osier dank",

My sliding chariot stays,

Thick set with agate", and the azure sheen*

Of turkis blue, and emerald green,
That in the channel strays;
Whilst from off the waters fleet
Thus I set my printless feet
O'er the cowslip's velvet head",
That bends not as I tread a:

885

890

895

that fiction is here heightened with the brilliancy of romance. Ligea's comb is of gold, and she sits on diamond rocks. These were new allurements for the unwary.-T. WARTON.

Listen, and save!

The repetition of the prayer, ver. 866 and 889, in the invocation of Sabrina, is similar to that of Æschylus's Chorus in the invocation of Darius's shade, "Perse," ver. 666 and 674.-THYER.

Thus Amaryllis, in the "Faithful Shepherdess," invokes the priest of Pan to protect her from the sullen shepherd, a. v. s. 1. p. 184.-T. WARTON.

By the rushy fringed bank.

See "Paradise Lost," b. iv. 262:-"The fringed bank with myrtle crown'd."-Т.

WARTON.

Where grows the willow, and the osier dank. See the "Faithful Shepherdess," a. iii. s. 1. p. 153.-T. WARTON.

w My sliding chariot stays,
Thick set with agate, &c.

See Drayton, "Polyolb." s. v. vol. ii. p. 752.-T. WARTON.

The azure sheen.

"Sheen" is again used as a substantive for brightness, in this poem, ver. 1003.-TODD.

Printless feet.

So Prospero to his elves, but in a style of much higher and wilder fiction, "Temp."

a. V. 5.

And ye that on the sands with printless foot
Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him
When he comes back.-T. WARTON.

Velvet head.

In the "Faithful Shepherdess," a. ii. s. 1: -"The dew-drops hang on the velvet-heads"

of flowers.- TODD.

That bends not as I tread.

See "England's Helicon," ed. 1614, by W. H.:

Where she doth walke,

Scarce she doth the primerose head

Depresse, or tender stalke

Of blew-vein'd violets,

Whereon her foot she sets. -T. WARTON.

Now the spell hath lost his hold;

And I must haste, ere morning hour,

To wait in Amphitrite's bower*.

[SABRINA descends, and the Lady rises out of her seat.]

Spir. Virgin, daughter of Locrine,

b Brightest Lady, look on me.

929

In the manuscript, virtuous: but "brightest" is an epithet thus applied in the "Faith

ful Shepherdess." -T. WARTON.

c Drops, that from my fountain pure
I have kept, of precious cure.

Calton proposed to read ure, that is, use. The word, it must be owned, was not uncommon: but the rhymes of many couplets in the "Faithful Shepherdess," relating to the same business, and ending "pure" and "cure," show that cure was Milton's word.T. WARTON.

d Thrice upon thy finger's tip, &c.

Compare Shakspeare, "Mids. Night's Dream," a. ii. s. 6. But Milton, in most of the circumstances of dissolving this charm, is apparently to be traced in the "Faithful Shepherdess."-T. WARTON.

• Thy rubied lip.

So, in Browne's "Brit. Past." b. ii. s. iii. p. 78:-

The melting rubyes on her cherry lip. TODD.

f I touch with chaste palms moist and cold :

Now the spell hath lost his hold.

Compare Fletcher's "Faithful Shepherdess," a. v. s. 1; a. iii. s. 1.-T. WARTON.
The chaste hands also of Britomart, the flowre of chastity, "Faer. Qu." iii. xi. 6, were

not here forgotten by Milton.-TODD.

a watchet weed, with many a curious wave, Which as a princely gift great Amphitrite gave.

"Polyolb." s. v. vol. ii. p. 752. And we have "Amphitrite's bower," ibid. s. xxvizi. v. iii. p. 1193.-T. WARTON.