Hail, goddess of nocturnal sport, Dark-veiled Cotytto, to whom the secret flame Of midnight torches burns! mysterious dame, That ne'er art called but when the dragon womb Of Stygian darkness spets her thickest gloom, And makes one blot of all the air!
Stay thy cloudy ebon chair, Wherein thou ridest with Hecat', and befriend Us thy vowed priests, till utmost end Of all thy dues be done, and none left out, Ere the blabbing eastern scout, The nice Morn on the Indian steep, From her cabined loop-hole peep, And to the tell-tale Sun descry Our concealed solemnity.
Come, knit hands, and beat the ground In a light fantastic round.
The Measure.
Break off, break off! I feel the different pace Of some chaste footing near about this ground.
Run to your shrouds within these brakes and trees;Our number may affright. Some virgin sure (For so I can distinguish by mine art)Benighted in these woods! Now to my charms, And to my wily trains: I shall ere long Be well stocked with as fair a herd as grazed About my mother Circe. Thus I hurl My dazzling spells into the spongy air, Of power to cheat the eye with blear illusion, And give it false presentments, lest the place And my quaint habits breed astonishment, And put the damsel to suspicious flight;Which must not be, for that's against my course.
I, under fair pretence of friendly ends, And well-placed words of glozing courtesy, Baited with reasons not unplausible, Wind me into the easy-hearted man, And hug him into snares. When once her eye Hath met the virtue of this magic dust, I shall appear some harmless villager Whom thrift keeps up about his country gear.
But here she comes; I fairly step aside, And hearken, if I may her business hear.
The LADY enters.
LADY. This way the noise was, if mine ear be true, My best guide now. Methought it was the sound Of riot and ill-managed merriment, Such as the jocund flute or gamesome pipe Stirs up among the loose unlettered hinds, When, for their teeming flocks and granges full, In wanton dance they praise the bounteous Pan, And thank the gods amiss. I should be loth To meet the rudeness and swilled insolence Of such late wassailers; yet, oh! where else Shall I inform my unacquainted feet In the blind mazes of this tangled wood?
My brothers, when they saw me wearied out With this long way, resolving here to lodge Under the spreading favour of these pines, Stepped, as they said, to the next thicket-side To bring me berries, or such cooling fruit As the kind hospitable woods provide.
They left me then when the grey-hooded Even, Like a sad votarist in palmer's weed, Rose from the hindmost wheels of Phoebus' wain.
But where they are, and why they came not back, Is now the labour of my thoughts. TTis likeliest They had engaged their wandering steps too far;And envious darkness, ere they could return, Had stole them from me. Else, O thievish Night, Why shouldst thou, but for some felonious end, In thy dark lantern thus close up the stars That Nature hung in heaven, and filled their lamps With everlasting oil to give due light To the misled and lonely traveller?
This is the place, as well as I may guess, Whence even now the tumult of loud mirth Was rife, and perfect in my listening ear;Yet nought but single darkness do I find.
What might this be ? A thousand fantasies Begin to throng into my memory, Of calling shapes, and beckoning shadows dire, And airy tongues that syllable men's names On sands and shores and desert wildernesses.
These thoughts may startle well, but not astound The virtuous mind, that ever walks attended By a strong siding champion, Conscience.
O, welcome, pure-eyed Faith, white-handed Hope, Thou hovering angel girt with golden wings, And thou unblemished form of Chastity!
I see ye visibly, and now believe That He, the Supreme Good, to whom all things ill Are but as slavish officers of vengeance, Would send a glistering guardian, if need were, To keep my life and honour unassailed. . . .
Was I deceived, or did a sable cloud Turn forth her silver lining on the night?
I did not err: there does a sable cloud Turn forth her silver lining on the night, And casts a gleam over this tufted grove.
I cannot hallo to my brothers, but Such noise as I can make to be heard farthest I'll venture; for my new-enlivened spirits Prompt me, and they perhaps are not far off.
Song.
Sweet Echo, sweetest nymph, that liv'st unseen Within thy airy shell By slow Meander's margent green, And in the violet-embroidered vale Where the love-lorn nightingale Nightly to thee her sad song mourneth well:
Canst thou not tell me of a gentle pair That likest thy Narcissus are?
O, if thou have Hid them in some flowery cave, Tell me but where, Sweet Queen of Parley, Daughter of the Sphere!
So may'st thou be translated to the skies, And give resounding grace to all Heaven's harmonies!
COMUS. Can any mortal mixture of earthUs mould Breathe such divine enchanting ravishment?
Sure something holy lodges in that breast, And with these raptures moves the vocal air To testify his hidden residence.
How sweetly did they float upon the wings Of silence, through the empty-vaulted night, At every fall smoothing the raven down Of darkness till it smiled! I have oft heard My mother Circe with the Sirens three, Amidst the flowery-kirtled Naiades, Culling their potent herbs and baleful drugs, Who, as they sung, would take the prisoned soul, And lap it in Elysium: Scylla wept, And chid her barking waves into attention, And fell Charybdis murmured soft applause.
Yet they in pleasing slumber lulled the sense, And in sweet madness robbed it of itself;But such a sacred and home-felt delight, Such sober certainty of waking bliss, I never heard till now. I'll speak to her, And she shall be my queen.QHail, foreign wonder!
Whom certain these rough shades did never breed, Unless the goddess that in rural shrine Dwell'st here with Pan or Sylvan, by blest song Forbidding every bleak unkindly fog To touch the prosperous growth of this tall wood.
