John Milton - L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas

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.

And, as the old swain said, she can unlock

The clasping charm, and thaw the numbing spell,

If she be right invoked in warbled song;

For maidenhood she loves, and will be swift

To aid a virgin, such as was herself,

In hard–besetting need. This will I try,

And add the power of some adjuring verse.

SONG.

Sabrina fair,

Listen where thou art sitting

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,

Listen and save!

Listen, and appear to us,

In name of great Oceanus.

By the earth–shaking Neptune's mace,

And Tethys' grave majestic pace;

By hoary Nereus' wrinkled look,

And the Carpathian wizard's hook;

By scaly Triton's winding shell,

And old soothsaying Glaucus' spell;

By Leucothea's lovely hands,

And her son that rules the strands;

By Thetis' tinsel–slippered 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;

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,

And bridle in thy headlong wave,

Till thou our summons answered have.

Listen and save!

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 azurn sheen

Of turkis 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,

That bends not as I tread.

Gentle swain, at thy request

I am here!

SPIR. Goddess dear,

We implore thy powerful hand

To undo the charmed band

Of true virgin here distressed

Through the force and through the wile

Of unblessed enchanter vile.

SABR. Shepherd, 't is my office best

To help ensnared chastity.

Brightest Lady, look on me.

Thus I sprinkle on thy breast

Drops that from my fountain pure

I have kept of precious cure;

Thrice upon thy finger's tip,

Thrice upon thy rubied lip:

Next this marble venomed seat,

Smeared with gums of glutinous heat,

I touch with chaste palms moist and cold.

Now the spell hath lost his hold;

And I must haste ere morning hour

To wait in Amphitrite's bower.

SABRINA descends, and the LADY rises out of her seat.

SPIR. Virgin, daughter of Locrine,

Sprung of old Anchises' line,

May thy brimmed waves for this

Their full tribute never miss

From a thousand petty rills,

That tumble down the snowy hills:

Summer drouth 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 crowned

With many a tower and terrace round,

And here and there thy banks upon

With groves of myrrh and cinnamon.

Come, Lady; while Heaven lends us grace,

Let us fly this cursed place,

Lest the sorcerer us entice

With some other new device.

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 there 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.

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.

SPIR. 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.