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If she be right invoked in warbled song,

For maidenhood she loves, and will be swift

855

To aid a virgin, such as was herself,
In hard besetting need; this will I try,

And add the power of some adjuring verse.

SABRINA fair,

SONG.

Listen where thou art sitting

860

Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave,
In twisted braids of lilies knitting

The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair;
Listen, for dear Honour's sake,
Goddess of the Silver lake,

865

Listen and save.

Listen, and appear to us

In name of great Oceanus,

By th' earth-shaking Neptune's mace,
And Tethys' grave majestic pace,

870

By hoary Nereus' wrinkled look,
And the Carpathian wizard's hook,
By scaly Triton's winding shell,
And old sooth-saying Glaucus' spell,
By Leucothea's lovely hands,

875

And her son that rules the strands,
By Thetis' tinsel-slipper'd feet,
And the songs of Sirens sweet,

By dead Parthenope's dear tomb,
And fair Ligea's golden comb,
Wherewith she sits on diamond rocks,
Sleeking her soft alluring locks,

880

By all the nymphs that nightly dance
Upon thy streams with wily glance,
Rise, rise, and heave thy rosy head
From thy coral-paven bed,

885

And bridle in thy headlong wave,

Till thou our summons answer'd have.

Listen and save.

872. The Carpathian wizard; Proteus, who had a cave at Carpathus, an island in the Mediterranean.

879. Parthenope and Ligea were two sirens; the former had, it is said, a tomb at Naples; the latter is here introduced according to the usual representations of mermaids.

889. The alniost unparalleled beauty of this and the following passage, the variety of epithets and images, the rapidity of the verse, sparkling and gleaming with the brightest sunshine of poetry, are a feast of roses to the imagination.

Sabrina rises, attended by water nymphs, and sings.

By the rushy-fringed bank,

Where grows the willow and the osier dank,

My sliding chariot stays,

Thick set with agate, and the azure sheen
Of turkois blue, and emerald green,

That in the channel strays;

Whilst from off the waters fleet
Thus I set my printless feet

O'er the cowslip's velvet head,

890

895

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To wait in Amphitrite's bower.

Sabrina descends, and the Lady rises out of her seat.

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923. Locrine was the son of Brutus, who was immediately descended from Anchises.

Summer drought, or singed air,
Never scorch thy tresses fair,
Nor wet October's torrent flood
Thy molten crystal fill with mud:
May thy billows roll ashore
The beryl, and the golden ore;
May thy lofty head be crown'd

930

With many a tower and terras round,

935

And here and there thy banks upon

With groves of myrrh and cinnamon.

Come, Lady, while Heav'n lends us grace,

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Come, let us haste, the stars grow high,

But night sits monarch yet in the mid sky.

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

936. Upon, crown'd, understood from line 934.

960

With the mincing Dryades

On the lawns, and on the leas.

965

This 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
Three fair branches of your own;

Heav'n 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.

975

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

960

That sing about the golden tree;

Along the crisped shades and bowers

Revels the spruce and jocund Spring,

985

The Graces, and the rosy-bosom'd Hours,

Thither all their bounties bring;

There eternal Summer dwells,

And west-winds with musky wing

About the cedar'd alleys fling

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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,

995

And drenches with Elysian dew

(List, mortals, if your ears be true)

Beds of hyacinth and roses,

Where young Adonis oft reposes,

976. This farewell of the spirit is in close imitation of Ariel's song in the Tempest, Act 5. Sc. 3.

995. Purfled, embroidered.

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After her wand'ring labours long,

Till free consent the Gods among
Make her his eternal bride,
And from her fair unspotted side
Two blissful twins are to be born,
Youth and Joy; so Jove hath sworn.

1010

But now my task is smoothly done,

I can fly, or I can run

Quickly to the green earth's end,

Where the bow'd welkin low doth bend,

1015

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 ye how to climb
Higher than the sphery chime;
Or, if Virtue feeble were,
Heav'n itself would stoop to her.

1002. Th' Assyrian queen; Venus, so called because

first worshipped by the Assyrians.

1020

There is a moral in this poem as sweetly and purely delicate as the verse is exquisite for its lovely images and melody. It was performed as a drama at Ludlow Castle, in 1634, before the Earl of Bridgewater, President of Wales, and was printed in 1637.

L'ALLEGRO.

HENCE, loathed Melancholy,

Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born, In Stygian cave forlorn,

[unholy!

'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights

This celebrated little descriptive poem and its companion, have preserved their distinct originality amid the crowd of similar compositions with which they are surrounded. They owe both their excellence and their popularity to the domestic character of their imagery, and to their direct appeal to the emotions which belong to the enjoyment of external nature. In other poems of the same kind, the sentiments introduced are frequently those of the writer only, and not those which must, by the most general

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