The Measure. 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: some virgin sure (For so I can distinguish by mine art) Benighted in these woods. Now to my charms, And to my wily trains: I shall, ere long, Of power to cheat the eye with blear illusion, Which must not be, for that's against my course; I, under fair pretence of friendly ends, Baited with reasons not unplausible, Wind me into the easy-hearted man, And hug him into snares. When once her eye I shall appear some harmless villager, Whom thrift keeps up about his country gear. And hearken, if I may, her business here. [The LADY enters.] My best guide now: methought it was the sound Such as the jocund flute, or gamesome pipe, In the blind mazes of this tangled wood? As the kind hospitable woods provide. They left me then, when the grey-hooded even, Like a sad votarist in palmer's weed, Rose from the hindmost wheels of Phoebus' wain. 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, That Nature hung in heaven, and filled their lamps This is the place, as well as I may guess, Of calling shapes, and beckoning shadows dire, These thoughts may startle well, but not astound, The virtuous mind, that ever walks attended By a strong siding champion, Conscience. Oh, 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 That he, the Supreme Good, to whom all things ill Are but as slavish officers of vengeance, |