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Scorning the unexempt condition,
By which all mortal frailty must subsist,
Refreshment after toil, ease after pain,
That have been tired all day without repast,
And timely rest have wanted; but, fair Virgin,
This will restore all soon.

Lady. 'Twill not, false traitor!

"Twill not restore the truth and honesty,

Would grow inured to light, and come at last
To gaze upon the sun with shameless brows.
List, Lady; be not coy, and be not cozened
With that same vaunted name, virginity.
Beauty is Nature's coin, must not be hoarded,
But must be current; and the good thereof
Consists in mutual and partaken bliss,
Unsavoury in the enjoyment of itself:

That thou hast banished from thy tongue with lies. If you let slip time, like a neglected rose

Was this the cottage, and the safe abode,
Thou told'st me of? What grim aspects are these,
These ugly-headed monsters? Mercy guard me!
Hence with thy brewed enchantments, foul de-
ceiver!

Hast thou betrayed my credulous innocence
With visored falsehood and base forgery?
And would'st thou seek again to trap me here
With lickerish baits, fit to ensnare a brute?
Were it a draught for Juno when she banquets,
I would not taste thy treasonous offer; none
But such as are good men can give good things;
And that, which is not good, is not delicious
To a well-governed and wise appetite.

Com. O foolishness of men! that lend their ears
To those budge doctors of the Stoic fur,
And fetch their precepts from the Cynic tub,
Praising the lean and sallow abstinence.
Wherefore did Nature pour her bounties forth
With such a full and unwithdrawing hand.
Covering the earth with odours, fruits, and flocks,
Thronging the seas with spawn innumerable,
But all to please and sate the curious taste?
And set to work millions of spinning worms,
That in their green shops weave the smooth-haired
silk,

To deck her sons; and, that no corner might
Be vacant of her plenty, in her own loins
She hutch'd the all-worshipped ore, and precious
gems,

To store her children with: if all the world
Should in a pet of temperance feed on pulse,
Drink the clear stream, and nothing wear but
frieze,

It withers on the stalk with languished head."
Beauty is Nature's brag, and must be shown
In courts, at feasts, and high solemnities,
Where most may wonder at the workmanship;
It is for homely features to keep home,
They had their name thence; coarse complexions,
And cheeks of sorry grain, will serve to ply
The sampler and to tease the housewife's wool.
What need a vermeil-tinctured lip for that,
Love-darting eyes, or tresses like the morn?
There was another meaning in these gifts;
Think what, and be advised; you are but young
yet.

Lady. I had not thought to have unlocked my
lips

In this unhallowed air, but that this juggler
Would think to charm my judgment, as my eyes,
Obtruding false rules pranked in reason's garb.
I hate when Vice can bolt her arguments,
And Virtue has no tongue to check her pride.-
Impostor! do not charge most innocent Nature,
As if she would her children should be riotous
With her abundance; she, good cateress,
Means her provision only to the good,
That live according to her sober laws,
And holy dictate of spare Temperance:
If every just man, that now pines with want,
Had but a moderate and beseeming share
Of that which lewdly-pampered Luxury
Now heaps upon some few with vast excess,
Nature's full blessings would be well dispensed
In unsuperfluous even proportion,

And she no whit encumbered with her store
And then the giver would be better thanked,

The All-giver would be unthanked, would be un- His praise due paid; for swinish Gluttony

praised,

Not half his wishes known, and yet despised;
And we should serve him as a grudging master,
As a penurious niggard of his wealth;
And live like Nature's bastards, not her sons,
Who would be quite surcharged with her own
weight,

And strangled with her waste fertility;

Ne'er looks to Heaven amidst his gorgeous feast,
But with besotted base ingratitude
Crams, and blasphemes his Feeder. Shall I go on?
Or have I said enough? To him that dares
Arm his profane tongue with contemptuous words
Against the sun-clad power of Chastity,

Fain would I something say, yet to what end?
Thou hast nor ear, nor soul, to apprehend

The earth cumbered, and the winged air darked The sublime notion and high mystery,

with plumes,

The herds would over-multitude their lords,
The sea o'erfraught would swell, and the
sought diamonds

Would so imblaze the forehead of the deep,
And so bestud with stars, that they below

That must be uttered to unfold the sage,
And serious doctrine of virginity;

un-And thou art worthy that thou should'st not know,
More happiness than this thy present lot.

Enjoy your dear wit and gay rhetoric,

That hath so well been taught her dazzling fence;

Thou art not fit to hear thyself convinced;
Yet, should I try, the uncontrolled worth
Of this pure cause, would kindle my rapt spirits
To such a flame of sacred vehemence,
That dumb things would be moved to sympathize,
And the brute Earth would lend her nerves and
shake,

Till all thy magic structures, reared so high,
Were shattered into heaps o'er thy false head.
Com. She fables not: I feel that I do fear
Her words set off by some superior power;

And though not mortal, yet a cold shuddering dew
Dips me all o'er, as when the wrath of Jove
Speaks thunder, and the chains of Erebus,
To some of Saturn's crew. I must dissemble,
And try her yet more strongly.-Come, no more;
This is mere moral babble, and direct
Against the canon laws of our foundation;
I must not suffer this; yet 'tis but the lees
And settlings of a melancholy blood:
But this will cure all straight; one sip of this
Will bathe the drooping spirits in delight,
Beyond the bliss of dreams. Be wise, and taste.-

The Brothers rush in with swords drawn, wrest his glass out of his hand, and break it against the ground; his rout make sign of resistance, but are all driven in. The Attendant Spirit comes in.

SPIRIT.

What, have you let the false enchanter 'scape?

O ye mistook, ye should have snatched his wand,

And bound him fast; without his rod reversed,
And backward mutters of dissevering power,
We can not free the Lady that sits here
In stony fetters fixed and motionless:
Yet stay, be not disturbed: now I bethink me,
Some other means I have which may be used,
Which once of Melibus old I learnt,
The soothest shepherd that e'er piped on plains.

There is a gentle nymph not far from hence, That with moist curb sways the smooth Severn stream,

Sabrina is her name, a virgin pure;
Whilom she was the daughter of Locrine,
That had the sceptre from his father Brute.
She, guiltless damsel, flying the mad pursuit
Of her enraged stepdame Guendolen,
Commended her fair innocence to the flood,
That staid her flight with his cross-flowing course.
The water-nymphs, that in the bottom played,
Held up their pearled wrists and took her in,
Bearing her straight to aged Nereus' hall;
Who, piteous of her woes, reared her lank head,
And gave her to his daughters to imbathe
In nectared lavers, strewed with asphodel;
And through the porch and inlet of each sense
Dropped in ambrosial oils, till she revived,
And underwent a quick immortal change,
Made goddess of the river: still she retains
Her maiden gentleness, and oft at eve

Visits the herds along the twilight meadows,
Helping all urchin blasts, and ill-luck signs
That the shrewd meddling elf delights to make,
Which she with precious vialed liquors heals;
For which the shepherds at their festivals
Carol her goodness loud in rustic lays,
And throw sweet garland wreaths into her stream
Of pansies, pinks, and gaudy daffodils.
And, as the old swain said, she can unlock
The clasping charm, and thaw the numbing spell,
If she be right invoked in warbled song;
For maidenhood she loves, and will be swift
To aid a virgin, such as was herself,
In hard-besetting need; this will I try,
And add the power of some adjuring verse.

Sabrina fair,

SONG.

Listen where thou art sitting

Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave,
In twisted braids of lilies knitting
The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair;
Listen for dear honour's sake,
Goddess of the silver lake,

Listen, and save.

Listen, and appear to us,
In name of great Oceanus;

By the earth-shaking Neptune's mace,
And Tethys' grave majectic pace,
And the Carpathian wizard's hook,
By hoary Nereus' wrinkled look,
By scaly Triton's winding shell,
And old sooth-saying Glaucus' spell,
By Leucothea's lovely hands,
And her son that rules the strands,
By Thetis' tinsel-slippered feet,
And the songs of Siren's sweet,
By dead Parthenope's dear tomb,
And fair Ligea's golden comb,
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 answered 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;

Gentle Swain, at thy request,
I am here.

Sp. Goddess dear,

We implore thy powerful hand
To undo the charmed band

Of true virgin here distressed,
Through the force and through the wile,
Of unblessed enchanter vile.

Sabr. Shepherd, 'tis my office best
To help ensnared chastity:
Brightest Lady, look on me;
Thus I sprinkle on thy breast
Drops, that from my fountain pure
I have kept, of precious cure;
Thrice upon thy finger's tip,
Thrice upon thy rubied lip:
Next this marble venomed seat,

Smeared with gums of glutinous heat,

I touch with chaste palms moist and cold:-
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.

Sp. Virgin, daughter of Locrine
Sprung of old Anchises' line,
May thy brimmed waves for this.
Their full tribute never miss
From a thousand petty rills,
That tumble down the snowy hills:
Summer drouth, or singed air,
Never scorch thy tresses fair,
Nor wet October's torrent flood
Thy molten crystal fill with mud;
May thy billows roll ashore
The beryl and the golden ore;
May thy lofty head be crowned
With many a tower and terrace round,
And here and there thy banks upon
With groves of myrrh and cinnamon.

Come, Lady, while Heaven lends us grace,
Let us fly this cursed place,
Lest the sorcerer us entice
With some other new device.
Not a waste or needless sound,
Till we come to holier ground;
I shall be your faithful guide
Through this gloomy covert wide,
And not many furlongs thence
Is your Father's residence,
Where this night are met in state
Many a friend to gratulate
His wished presence; and beside
All the swains, that there abide,
With jigs and rural dance resort;
We shall catch them at their sport,
And our sudden coming there
Will double all their mirth and cheer:

Come, let us haste, the stars grow high, But night sits monarch yet in the mid sky.

The scene changes, presenting Ludlow town and the Presi dent's castle; then come in Country Dancers, after them the Attendant Spirit, with the two Brothers, and the Lady.

SONG.

Sp. Back, Shepherds, back; enough you play, Till next sun-shine holiday:

Here be, without duck or nod,

Other trippings to be trod

Of lighter toes, and such court guise

As Mercury did first devise,

With the mincing dryades,

On the lawns, and on the leas.

This second Song presents them to their Father and Mother.
Noble Lord, and Lady bright,

I have brought ye new delight;
Here behold so goodly grown
Three fair branches of your own;
Heaven hath timely tried their youth,

Their faith, their patience, and their truth,
And sent them here through hard assays
With a crown of deathless praise,
To triumph in victorious dance
O'er sensual Folly and Intemperance.

The Dances ended, the Spirit epiloguises.
Sp. To the ocean now I fly,
And those happy climes that lie
Where day never shuts his eye,
Up in the broad fields of the sky:
There I suck the liquid air
All amidst the gardens fair

Of Hesperus, and his daughters three
That sing about the golden tree:
Along the crisped shades and bowers
Revels the spruce and jocund Spring;
The Graces, and the rosy-bosom'd Hours,
Thither all their bounties bring;
There eternal Summer dwells,
And West-Winds, with musky wing,
About the cedared alleys fling
Nard and Cassia's balmy smells.
Iris there with humid bow

Waters the odorous banks, that blow
Flowers of more mingled hue
Than the purfled scarf can shew;
And drenches with Elysian dew
(List, mortals, if your ears be true)
Beds of hyacinth and roses,
Where young Adonis oft reposes,
Waxing well of his deep wound
In slumber soft, and on the ground
Sadly sits th' Assyrian queen:
But far above in spangled sheen
Celestial Cupid, her famed son, advanced,
Holds his dear Psyche sweet entranced,

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Could Heaven for pity thee so strictly doom? Oh no! for something in thy face did shine

ON THE DEATH OF A FAIR INFANT Above mortality, that showed thou wast divine.

DYING OF A COUGH.

O FAIREST flower, no sooner blown but blasted,
Soft silken primrose fading timelessly,
Summer's chief honour, if thou had'st outlasted

Bleak Winter's force that made thy blossom dry;
For he, being amorous on that lovely dye

That did thy cheek envermeil, thought to kiss,
But killed, alas! and then bewailed his fatal bliss.

For since grim Aquilo, his charioteer,
By boisterous rape the Athenian damsel got,
He thought it touched his deity full near,
If likewise he some fair one wedded not,
Thereby to wipe away the infamous blot

Of long uncoupled bed, and childless eld, Which 'mongst the wanton gods, a foul reproach was held.

So, mounting up in icy-pearled car,

Through middle empire of the freezing air
He wandered long, till thee he spied from far;
There ended was his quest, there ceased his care:
Down he descended from his snow-soft chair,

But, all unwares, with his cold kind embrace, Unhoused thy virgin soul from her fair biding place.

Yet art thou not inglorious in thy fate;
For so Apollo, with unweeting hand,
Whilom did slay his dearly loved mate,
Young Hyacinth, born on Eurotas' strand:
Young Hyacinth, the pride of Spartan land;

But then transformed him to a purple flower: Alack, that so to change thee Winter had no power!

Yet can I not persuade me thou art dead,
Or that thy corse corrupts in earth's dark womb,
Or that thy beauties lie in wormy bed,
Hid from the world in a low delved tomb;

Resolve me then, O soul most surely blest,
(If so it be that thou these plaints dost hear;)
Tell me, bright Spirit, where'er thou hoverest,
Or in the Elysian fields, (if such there were;)
Whether above that high first-moving sphere,

And why from us so quickly thou did'st take thy
O say me true; if thou wert mortal wight,
flight?

Wert thou some star which from the ruined roof
Of shaked Olympus by mischance did'st fall;
Which careful Jove in nature's true behoof
Took up, and in fit place did reinstall?
Or did of late earth's sons besiege the wall

Of sheeny Heaven, and thou some goddess fled
Amongst us here below to hide thy nectared head ?
Or wert thou that just Maid, who once before
Forsook the hated earth, O tell me sooth,
And camest again to visit us once more?
Or wert thou that sweet smiling youth?
Or that crowned matron sage, white-robed Truth?
Or any other of that heavenly brood
Let down in cloudy throne to do the world some
good?

Or wert thou of the golden-winged host,
Who, having clad thyself in human weed,
To earth from thy prefixed seat did'st post,
And after short abode fly back with speed,
As if to show what creatures Heaven doth breed
Thereby to set the hearts of men on fire,
To scorn the sordid world, and unto Heaven aspire?
But oh! why did'st thou not stay here below
To bless us with thy heavenly-loved innocence,
To slake his wrath, whom sin hath made our foe,
To turn swift-rushing black perdition hence,
Or drive away the slaughtering pestilence,

To stand 'twixt us and our deserved smart? But thou can'st best perform that office where thou

art.

Then thou, the mother of so sweet a child,
Her false-imagined loss cease to lament,
And wisely learn to curb thy sorrows wild;
Think what a present thou to God hast sent,
And render him with patience what he lent;
This if thou do, he will an offspring give,
That, till the world's last end, shall make thy name
to live.

ANNO ÆTATIS 19.

May tell at length how green eyed Neptune raves,
In Heaven's defiance mustering all his waves;
Then sing of secret things that came to pass
When beldam Nature in her cradle was;
And last of kings, and queens, and heroes old,
Such as the wise Demodocus once told
In solemn songs at king Alcinous' feast,
While sad Ulysses' soul, and all the rest,
Are held with his melodious harmony
In willing chains and sweet captivity,
But fie, my wandering muse, how thou dost stray!
Expectance calls thee now another way;
Thou knowest it must be now thy only bent
To keep in compass of thy predicament:
Then quick about thy proposed business come,
That to the next I may resign my room.

Then Ens is represented as father of the predicaments his two
sons, whereof the eldest stood for substance with his canons,
which Ens, thus speaking, explains.

Good luck befriend thee, son; for at thy birth,
The fairy ladies danced upon the hearth;
Thy drowsy nurse hath sworn she did them spy
Come tripping to the room where thou didst lie,
And sweetly singing round about thy bed,
Strew all their blessings on thy sleeping head.
She heard them give thee this, that thou shouldst
still

From eyes of mortals walk invisible:

Yet there is something that doth force my fear;
For once it was my dismal hap to hear
A sybil old, bow-bent with crooked age,
That far events full wisely could presage,
And in time's long and dark prospective glass
Foresaw what future days should bring to pass;

At a Vacation Exercise in the college, part Latin, part Eng.
lish. The Latin speeches ended, the English thus began.
HAIL, native Language, that by sinews weak
Did'st move my first endeavouring tongue to speak,
And madest imperfect words with childish trips
Half unpronounced, slide through my infant lips,
Driving dumb Silence from the portal door,
Where he had mutely sat two years before!
Here I salute thee, and thy pardon ask,
That now I use thee in my latter task:
Small loss it is that thence can come unto thee,
I know my tongue but little grace can do thee:
Thou needest not be ambitious to be first,
Believe me I have thither packed the worst:
And, if it happens as I did forecast,
The daintiest dishes shall be served up last,
I pray thee then deny me not thy aid,
For this same small neglect that I have made:
But haste thee straight to do me once a pleasure,
And from thy wardrobe bring the chiefest treasure." Your son," said she, (" nor can you it prevent,)
Not those new fangled toys, and trimming slight
Which takes our late fantastics with delight;
But cull those richest robes, and gayest attire,
Which deepest spirits, and choicest wits desire.
I have some naked thoughts that rove about,
And loudly knock to have their passage out;
And, weary of their place do only stay
Till thou hast decked them in thy best array;
That so they may, without suspect or fears,
Fly swiftly to this fair assembly's ears; .
Yet I had rather, if I were to choose,
Thy service in some graver subject use,
Such as may make thee search thy coffers round,
Before thou clothe my fancy in fit sound:
Such where the deep transported mind may soar
Above the wheeling poles, and at Heaven's door
Look in, and see each blissful deity

How he before the thunderous throne doth lie,
Listening to what unshorn Apollo sings
To the touch of golden wires, while Hebe brings
Immortal nectar to her kingly sire:

Shall subject be to many an accident.

O'er all his brethren he shall reign as king,
Yet every one shall make him underling;
And those that can not live from him asunder,
Ungratefully shall strive to keep him under;
In worth and excellence he shall outgo them,
Yet, being above them, he shall be below them;
From others he shall stand in need of nothing,
Yet on his brother shall depend for clothing.
To find a foe it shall not be his hap;
And peace shall lull him in her flowery lap;
Yet shall he live in strife, and at his door
Devouring war shall never cease to roar;
Yea, it shall be his natural property
To harbour those that are at enmity.
What power, what force, what mighty spell, if not
Your learned hands, can loose this Gordian knot?"
The next Quantity and Quality spake in prose, then Rela
tion was called by his name.

Rivers, arise; whether thou be the son

Then passing through the spheres of watchful fire Of utmost Tweed, or Oose, or gulfy Dun,

And misty regions of wide air next under,

And hills of snow, and lofts of piled thunder,

Or Trent, who, like some earthborn giant spreads
His thirty arms along the indented meads;

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