Page:Comus and other poems - Milton (1906).djvu/38


 * Co.O foolishness of men! that lend their ears

To those budge doctors of the Stoick Furr, And fetch their precepts from the Cynick Tub, Praising the lean and sallow Abstinence. Wherefore did Nature powre her bounties forth, With such a full and unwithdrawing hand, Covering the earth with odours, fruits, and flocks, Thronging the Seas with spawn innumerable, But all to please, and sate the curious taste? And set to work millions of spinning Worms, That in their green shops weave the smooth-hair'd silk To deck her Sons, and that no corner might Be vacant of her plenty, in her own loyns She hutch't th' all-worshipt ore and precious gems To store her children with; if all the world Should in a pet of temperance feed on Pulse, Drink the clear stream, and nothing wear but Frieze, Th' all-giver would be unthank't, would be unprais'd, Not half his riches known, and yet despis'd, And we should serve him as a grudging master, As a penurious niggard of his wealth, And live like Natures bastards, not her sons, Who would be quite surcharg'd with her own weight, And strangl'd with her waste fertility; Th' earth cumber'd, and the wing'd air dark't with plumes, The herds would over-multitude their Lords, The Sea o'refraught would swell, & th' unsought diamonds Would so emblaze the forhead of the Deep, And so bestudd with Stars, that they below Would grow inur'd to light, and com at last To gaze upon the Sun with shameless brows. List Lady be not coy, and be not cosen'd With that same vaunted name Virginity, Beauty is natures coyn, must not be hoorded, But must be currant, and the good thereof Consists in mutual and partak'n bliss, Rh