Page images
PDF
EPUB

With Jiggs, and rural dance refort;

We shall catch them at their sport,
And our fudden coming there

Will double all their mirth and chear.
Come let us hafte, the Stars grow high,
But Night fits Monarch yet in the mid sky.

The Scene changes, prefenting Ludlow Town and the Prefident's Caftle; then come in Country Dancers, after them the attendant Spirit, with the two Brothers and the Lady.

SONG.

Spir. Back, Shepherds, back, anough your play, "Till next Sun-fhine holiday;

Here be, without duck or nod,

Other trippings to be trod

Of lighter toes, and fuch Court guife

As Mercury did first devise

With the mincing Dryades,

On the Lawns, and on the Leas.

[blocks in formation]

This fecond Song presents them to their Father and Mother.

[ocr errors]

Noble Lord and Lady bright,
I have brought ye new delight:
Here behold fo goodly grown

Three fair branches of your own;
Heav'n hath timely try'd their youth,
Their faith, their patience, and their truth,
And fent them here through hard affays
With a Crown of deathless Praise,

To triumph in victorious dance
O'er fenfual Folly, and Intemperance.

The Dances ended, the Spirit Epiloguizes.

Spir. To the Ocean now I fly,

And those happy climes that ly
Where day never shuts his eye,
Up in the broad fields of the sky:
There I fuck the liquid air

All amidst the Gardens fair

Of Hesperus, and his daughters three
That fing about the golden tree:

Along

Along the crifped fhades and bowres

Revels the spruce and jocund Spring,

The Graces, and the rofie-bosom'd Hours,
Thither all their bounties bring,

There eternal Summer dwells,

And Weft-winds, with musky wing

About the cedar'n alleys fling

Nard, and Caffia's balmy fmells.

Iris there with humid bow

Waters the odorous banks, that blow
Flowers of more mingled hew
Than her purfled scarf can fhew,
And drenches with Elysian dew
(Lift mortals if your ears be true)
Beds of Hyacinth and Roses,
Where young Adonis oft reposes,
Waxing well of his deep wound
In flumber soft, and on the ground
Sadly fits th' Affyrian Queen;

But far above in spangled sheen

Celestial Cupid her fam'd Son advanc'd,
Holds his dear Pfyche sweet intranc'd,

T 3

After

[ocr errors]

After her wandring labours long,
'Till free confent the gods among
Make her his eternal Bride,

And from her fair unspotted fide
Two blissful twins are to be born,
Youth and joy; fo Jove hath fworn.
But now my task is fmoothly done,
I can fly, or I can run

Quickly to the green earth's end,

Where the bow'd welkin flow doth bend;

And from thence can foar as foon

To the corners of the Moon.

Mortals that would follow me, Love virtue, fhe alone is free; She can teach ye how to clime Higher than the Sphery chime; Or if virtue feeble were,

Heav'n it self would stoop to her.

ON

ΟΝ ΤΗΕ

MORNING

O F

CHRIST'S NATIVITY.

T

I.

HIS is the Month, and this the happy Morn Wherein the Son of Heav'n's eternal King, Of wedded Maid, and Virgin Mother born, Our great Redemption from above did bring; For fo the holy Sages once did fing,

That he our deadly forfeit should release, And with his Father work us a perpetual peace.

II.

That glorious Form, that Light unsufferable,
And that far-beaming blaze of Majefty,
Wherewith he wont at Heav'n's high Council-table
To fit the midst of Trinal Unity,

He laid afide; and here with us to be,

[blocks in formation]
« PreviousContinue »