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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,
His praise due paid; for swinish Gluttony
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 sublime notion, and high mystery,

That must be uttered to unfold the sage

And serious doctrine of virginity;

And thou art worthy that thou shouldst 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 sympathise,
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.

COMUS.

She fables not: I feel that I do fear 41

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.

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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?
Oh! ye mistook, ye should have snatched his wand,
And bound him fast; without his rod reversed,
And backward mutters of dissevering power,

We cannot 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 Melibœus 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;

Whilome she was the daughter of Locrine,42

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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,

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