Page:The Complete Poetical Works of John Milton.djvu/82

 POEMS WRITTEN AT HORTON

��COMUS

DEDICATION OF THE ANONYMOUS EDITION PUBLISHED BY LAWES IN 1637

" To the Right Honourable John, Lord Viscount Brackley, son and heir-apparent to the Earl of

Bridgewater, frc"

" MY LORD, This Poem, which received its first occasion of birth from yourself and others of your noble family, and much honour from your own person in the performance, now returns again to make a final dedication of itself to you. Although not openly acknowledged by the Author, yet it is a legitimate offspring, so lovely and so much desired that the often copying of it hath tired my pen to give my several friends satisfaction, and brought me to a necessity of pro- ducing it to the public view, and now to offer it up, in all rightful devotion, to those fair hopes and rare endowments of your much-promising youth, which give a full assurance to all that know you of a future excellence. Live, sweet Lord, to be the honour of your name ; and receive this as your own from the hands of him who hath by many favours been long obliged to your most honoured Parents, and, as in this representation your attendant Thyrsis, so now in all real ex- pression

" Your faithful and most humble Servant,

"H. LAWES."

THE PERSONS

THE ATTENDANT SPIRIT, afterwards in the habit of THYKSIS.

COMUS, with his Crew.

THE LADY.

FIRST BROTHER.

SECOND BROTHER.

SABRINA, the Nymph.

The Chief Persons which presented were :

The Lord Brackley ;

Mr. Thomas Egerton, his Brother ;

The Lady Alice Egerton.

��The first Scene discovers a wild wood. The ATTENDANT SPIRIT descends or enters.

BEFORE the starry threshold of Jove's

court My mansion is, where those immortal

shapes

Of bright aerial Spirits live insphered In regions mild of calm and serene air, Above the smoke and stir of this dim spot Which men call Earth, and, with low-

thoughted care,

Confined and pestered in this pinfold here, Strive to keep up a frail and feverish being, Unmindful of the crown that Virtue gives, After this mortal change, to her true ser- vants 10 Amongst the enthroned gods on sainted

seats.

Yet some there be that by due steps aspire To lay their just hands on that golden key That opes the Palace of Eternity. To such my errand is; and, but for such,

��I would not soil these pure ambrosial weeds With the rank vapours of this sin-worn

mould. But to my task. Neptune, besides the

sway

Of every salt flood and each ebbing stream, Took in, by lot 'twixt high and nether Jove, Imperial rule of all the sea-girt Isles 21 That, like to rich and various gems, inlay The unadorned bosom of the Deep; Which he, to grace his tributary gods, By course commits to several government, And gives them leave to wear their sap- phire crowns And wield their little tridents. But this

Isle,

The greatest and the best of all the main, He quarters to his blue-haired deities; 29 And all this tract that fronts the falling sun A noble Peer of mickle trust and power Has in his charge, with tempered awe to

guide An old and haughty Nation, proud in arms:

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