The earth cumbered,and the winged air darked with plumes,The herds would over-multitude their lords;The sea o'erfraught would swell,and the unsought diamonds Would so emblaze the forehead of the deep,And so bestud with stars,that they below 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.
If you let slip time,like a neglected rose 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 huswife'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 mine 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,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 enow?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 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 't is 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.
SPIR .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 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 Meliboeus 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 stayed 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 asphodil,And through the porch and inlet of each sense Dropt 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.
