Page:Comus and other poems - Milton (1906).djvu/18

 Imperial rule of all the Sea-girt Iles That like to rich, and various gemms inlay The unadorned bosom of the Deep, Which he to grace his tributary gods By course commits to severall goverment, And gives them leave to wear their Saphire crowns, And weild their little tridents, but this Ile The greatest, and the best of all the main He quarters to his blu-hair'd deities, And all this tract that fronts the falling Sun A noble Peer of mickle trust, and power Has in his charge, with temper'd awe to guide An old, and haughty Nation proud in Arms: Where his fair off-spring nurs't in Princely lore, Are coming to attend their Fathers state, And new-entrusted Scepter, but their way Lies through the perplex't paths of this drear Wood, The nodding horror of whose shady brows Threats the forlorn and wand'ring Passinger. And here their tender age might suffer perill, But that by quick command from Soveran Jove I was dispatcht for their defence, and guard; And listen why, for I will tell ye now What never yet was heard in Tale or Song From old, or modern Bard in Hall, or Bowr.
 * Bacchus that first from out the purple Grape,

Crush't the sweet poyson of mis-used Wine After the Tuscan Mariners transform'd Coasting the Tyrrhene shore, as the winds listed, On Circes Iland fell (who knows not Circe The daughter of the Sun? Whose charmed Cup Whoever tasted, lost his upright shape, And downward fell into a groveling Swine) This Nymph that gaz'd upon his clustring locks, With Ivy berries wreath'd, and his blithe youth, Had by him, ere he parted thence, a Son Rh