Page:The Complete Poetical Works of John Milton.djvu/88

 POEMS WRITTEN AT HORTON

��Yet, where an equal poise of hope and fear 410

Does arbitrate the event, my nature is That I encline to hope rather than fear, And gladly banish squint suspicion. My sister is not so defenceless left As you imagine; she has a hidden strength, Which you remember not.

Sec. Bro. What hidden strength,

Unless the strength of Heaven, if you mean

that? Eld. Bro. I mean that too, but yet a

hidden strength, Which, if Heaven gave it, may be termed

her own :

'T is Chastity, my brother, Chastity: 420 She that has that is clad in com'plete steel, And, like a quivered nymph with arrows

keen, May trace huge forests, and unharboured

heaths,

Infamous hills, and sandy perilous wilds; Where, through the sacred rays of chas- tity,

No savage fierce, bandite, or mountaineer, Will dare to soil her virgin purity. Yea, there where very desolation dwells, By grots and caverns shagged with horrid shades, 429

She may pass on with unblenched majesty, Be it not done in pride, or in presumption. Some say no evil thing that walks by night, In fog or fire, by lake or moorish fen, Blue meagre hag, or stubborn unlaid ghost, That breaks his magic chains at curfew

time,

No goblin or swart faery of the mine, Hath hurtful power o'er true virginity. Do ye believe me yet, or shall I call Antiquity from the old schools of Greece To testify the arms of Chastity ? 440

Hence had the huntress Dian her dread

bow,

Fair silver-shafted Queen for ever chaste, Wherewith she tamed the brinded lioness And spotted mountain - pard, but set at

nought

The frivolous bolt of C upid ; gods and men Feared her stern frown, and she was queen

o' the woods.

What was that snaky-headed Gorgon shield That wise Minerva wore, unconquered vir- gin.

Wherewith she freezed her foes to con'- gealed stone,

��But rigid looks of chaste austerity, 450

And noble grace that dashed brute violence With sudden adoration and blank awe ? So dear to Heaven is saintly chastity That, when a soul is found sincerely so, A thousand liveried angels lackey her, Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt, And in clear dream and solemn vision Tell her of things that no gross ear can

hear;

Till oft converse with heavenly habitants Begin to cast a beam on the outward shape, The unpolluted temple of the mind, 461 And turns it by degrees to the soul's es- sence, Till all be made immortal. But, when

lust, By unchaste looks, loose gestures, and foul

talk,

But most by lewd and lavish act of sin, Lets in defilement to the inward parts, The soul grows clotted by contagion, Imbodies, and imbrutes, till she quite lose The divine property of her first being. Such are those thick and gloomy shadows damp 470

Oft seen in charnel-vaults and sepulchres, Lingering and sitting by a new-made grave, As loth to leave the body that it loved, And linked itself by carnal sensualty To a degenerate and degraded state.

Sec. Bro. How charming is divine Philo- sophy !

Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools sup- pose,

But musical as is Apollo's lute, And a perpetual feast of nectared sweets, Where no crude surfeit reigns.

Eld. Bro. List ! list ! I hear

Some far-off hallo break the silent air. 481

Sec. Bro. Methought so too; what should

it be?

Eld. Bro. For certain, Either some one, like us, night-foundered

here, Or else some neighbour woodman, or, at

worst,

Some roving robber calling to his fellows. Sec. Bro. Heaven keep my sister !

Again, again, and near ! Best draw, and stand upon our guard. . Eld. Bro. I '11 hallo.

If he be friendly, he comes well : if not, Defence is a good cause, and Heaven be for us !

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