Obrázky stránek
PDF
ePub

Lest the Sorcerer us entice
With some other new device.

940

Not a waste, or needless sound,
Till we come to holier ground;

I shall be your faithful guide
Through this gloomy covert wide;
And not many furlongs thence
Is your father's residence,
Where this night are met in state
Many a friend to gratulate
His wished presence; and beside
All the swains, that near abide,
With jigs and rural dance resort;
We shall catch them at their sport,
And our sudden coming there

Will double all their mirth and cheer;-
Come, let us haste! the stars grow high;
But Night sits monarch yet in the mid sky.

950

The scene changes, presenting Ludlow town and the President's castle; then come in Country Dancers, after them the ATTENDANT SPIRIT, with the Two BROTHERS and the LADY.

SONG.

Spi. Back, Shepherds! back; enough your play,

Till next sun-shine holiday,

Here be, without duck or nod,

Other trippings to be trod

Of lighter toes, and such court guise

As Mercury did first devise,

With the mincing Dryades

On the lawns, and on the leas.

The second song presents them to their Father and Mother.

Noble Lord, and Lady bright!

I have brought ye new delight,

Here behold so goodly grown

960

Three fair branches of your own;

Heaven hath timely tried their youth,

970

Their faith, their patience, and their truth,

And sent them here, through hard assays,
With a crown of deathless praise,

To triumph, in victorious dance,
O'er sensual folly, and intemperance.

The dances ended, the SPIRIT epiloguizes.
Spi. To the ocean now I fly,
And those happy climes that lie
Where Day never shuts his eye,

Up in the broad fields of the sky;
There I suck the liquid air
All amidst the gardens fair

Of Hesperus, and his daughters three
That sing about the golden tree;
Along the crispèd shades and bowers
Revels the spruce and jocund Spring;

The Graces, and the rosy-bosomed Hours,
Thither all their bounties bring;

There eternal Summer dwells,

And west-winds with musky wing

About the cedarn alleys fling
Nard and Cassia's balmy smells.
Iris there with humid bow

Waters the odorous banks, that blow

Flowers of more mingled hue

Than her purfled scarf can shew;

And drenches with Elysian dew
(List mortals, if your ear be true)
Beds of hyacinth and roses,
Where young Adonis oft reposes,
Waxing well of his deep wound
In slumber soft, and on the ground
Sadly sits the Assyrian queen :
But far above, in spangled sheen,

Celestial Cupid, her famed son, advanced,
Holds his dear Psyche sweet entranced,

After her wandering labours long,
Till free consent the Gods among

Make her his eternal bride,

And from her fair unspotted side

980

900

1000

Two blissful twins are to be born,
Youth and Joy; so Jove hath sworn.

But now my task is smoothly done,
I can fly, or I can run,

Quickly to the green Earth's end,

Where the bowed welkin slow doth bend ;
And from thence can soar as soon
To the corners of the moon.

Mortals that would follow me,
Love Virtue; she alone is free:
She can teach you how to climb
Higher than the sphery chime;
Or, if Virtue feeble were,

Heaven itself would stoop to her.

ΙΟΙΟ

1020

[graphic][merged small]

HENCE loathed Melancholy!

Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born,

In Stygian cave forlorn

'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy; Find out some uncouth cell,

Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings,

And the night raven sings;

There, under ebon shades, and low-browed rocks,

As ragged as thy locks,

In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell!

But come, thou Goddess fair and free!
In Heaven ycleped Euphrosynè,
And by men, heart-easing Mirth;
Whom lovely Venus, at a birth,
With two sister Graces more,
To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore;
Or whether (as some sager sing)

The frolic wind that breathes the spring,
Zephyr, with Aurora playing,

As he met her once a-Maying,
There on beds of violets blue,

And fresh-blown roses washed in dew,
Filled her with thee a daughter fair,
So buxom, blithe, and debonair.

Haste thee, Nymph! and bring with thee
Jest, and youthful Jollity,

Quips, and Cranks, and wanton Wiles,
Nods, and Becks, and wreathèd Smiles,
Such as hang on Hebè's cheek,
And love to live in dimple sleek;
Sport that wrinkled Care derides,

And Laughter holding both his sides.

[blocks in formation]

Come! and trip it, as you go,
On the light fantastic toe;

And, in thy right hand, lead with thee
The mountain nymph, sweet Liberty;
And, if I give thee honour due,
Mirth! admit me of thy crew,

To live with her, and live with thee,
In unreproved pleasures free;
To hear the lark begin his flight,

And, singing, startle the dull Night,
From his watch-tower in the skies,
Till the dappled Dawn doth rise ;
Then to come, in spite of Sorrow,
And at my window bid good-morrow,
Through the sweet-briar, or the vine,
Or the twisted eglantine:

While the cock, with lively din,

Scatters the rear of Darkness thin;
And to the stack, or the barn-door,

Stoutly struts his dame; before:

Oft listening how the hounds and horn,
Cheerly rouse the slumbering Morn,

From the side of some hoar hill

Through the high wood echoing shrill :
Some time walking, not unseen,
By hedge-row elms, on hillocks green,
Right against the eastern gate,
Where the great sun begins his state,
Robed in flames, and amber light,
The clouds in thousand liveries dight;
While the ploughman, near at hand,
Whistles o'er the furrowed land;
And the milkmaid singeth blithe;
And the mower whets his scythe;
And every shepherd tells his tale
Under the hawthorn in the dale.

40

50

60

Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures,

Whilst the landskip round it measures;

70

Russet lawns, and fallows gray,

Where the nibbling flocks do stray;

« PředchozíPokračovat »