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Or 'gainst the rugged bark of some broad elm

Leans her unpillowed head, fraught with sad fears. What if in wild amazement and affright?

Or, while we speak, within the direful grasp

Of savage Hunger, or of savage Heat?

ELDER BROTHER.

- Peace, brother! be not over-exquisite

To cast the fashion of uncertain evils;

For grant they be so, while they rest unknown,
What need a man forestall his date of grief,
And run to meet what he would most avoid?

Or if they be but false alarms of fear,
How bitter is such self-delusion!

I do not think my sister so to seek,

Or so unprincipled in Virtue's book,

And the sweet peace that goodness bosoms ever,

As that the single want of light and noise

(Not being in danger, as I trust she is not)

Could stir the constant mood of her calm thoughts, And put them into misbecoming plight.

Virtue could see to do what Virtue would

By her own radiant light, though sun and moon

Were in the flat sea sunk. And Wisdom's self

Oft seeks to sweet retiréd Solitude,

Where, with her best nurse, Contemplation,

She plumes her feathers, and lets grow her wings, That in the various bustle of resort

Were all too ruffled, and sometimes impaired.

He that has light within his own clear breast

May sit i' the centre, and enjoy bright day;
But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts,

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SECOND BROTHER.

'Tis most true,

That musing meditation most affects

The pensive secrecy of desert cell,

Far from the cheerful haunt of men and herds,

And sits as safe as in a senate-house;

For who would rob a hermit of his weeds,

His few books, or his beads, or maple dish, violence?

Or do his grey hairs any

But Beauty, like the fair Hesperian tree
Laden with blooming gold, hath need the guard

Of dragon-watch with unenchanted eye,

To save her blossoms, and defend her fruit

From the rash hand of bold Incontinence.

You may as well spread out the unsunned heaps
Of misers' treasure by an outlaw's den,
And tell me it is safe, as bid me hope
Danger will wink on opportunity,
And let a single helpless maiden pass
Uninjured in this wild surrounding waste.
Of night, or loneliness, it recks me not;

I fear the dread events that dog them both,

Lest some ill-greeting touch attempt the person

Of our unownéd sister.

ELDER BROTHER.

I do not, brother,

Infer, as if I thought my sister's state
Secure without all doubt or controversy;
Yet, where an equal poise of hope and fear
Does arbitrate the event, my nature is
That I incline to hope rather than fear,

And gladly banish squint suspicion.

My sister is not so defenceless left

As you imagine: she has a hidden strength
Which you remember not.

SECOND BROTHER.

What hidden strength,

Unless the strength of Heaven, if you mean that?

ELDER BROTHER.

I mean that too; but yet a hidden strength,

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