SPIRIT. Ay me unhappy! then my fears are true. ELDER BROTHER. What fears, good Thyrsis? Prythee briefly shew. SPIRIT. I'll tell ye; 't is not vain or fabulous (Though so esteemed by shallow Ignorance) What the sage poets, taught by the 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 navel19 of this hideous wood, Immured in cypress shades, a sorcerer dwells, Of Bacchus and of Circe born, great Comus, Deep skilled in all his mother's witcheries; And here to every thirsty wanderer, By sly enticement, gives his baneful cup, With many murmurs mixed, whose pleasing poison Fixes instead, unmoulding Reason's mintage Tending my flocks hard by i' the hilly crofts He and his monstrous rout are heard to howl Like stabled wolves, or tigers at their prey, In their obscuréd haunts of inmost bowers. Till Fancy had her fill; but, ere a close, |