Page:The Complete Poetical Works of John Milton.djvu/95

 COMUS

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��May thy lofty head be crowned With many a tower and terrace round, And here and there thy banks upon With groves of myrrh and cinnamon. Come, Lady; while Heaven lends us

grace,

Let us fly this cursed place, Lest the Sorcerer us entice 940

With some other new device. Not a waste or needless sound Till we come to holier ground. I shall be your faithful guide Through this gloomy covert wide; And not many furlongs thence Is your Father's residence, Where this night are met in state Many a friend to gratulate His wished presence, and beside 950

All the Swains that there abide With jigs and rural dance resort. We shall catch them at their sport, And our sudden coming there Will double all their mirth and cheer. Come, let us haste; the stars grow high, But Night sits monarch yet in the mid

sky.

The Scene changes, presenting Ludlow Town, and the President's Castle : then come in Country Dancers ; after them the ATTENDANT SPIRIT, with the tn-o BROTHERS and the LADY.

SONG

Spir. Back, Shepherds, back ! Enough

your play

Till next sun-shine holiday. Here be, without duck or nod, 960

Other trippings to be trod Of lighter toes, and such court guise As Mercury did first devise With the mincing Dryades On the lawns and on the leas.

This second Song presents them to their Father

and Mother.

Noble Lord and Lady bright, I have brought ye new delight. Here behold so goodly grown Three fair branches of your own. Heaven hath timely tried their youth, 970 Their faith, their patience, and their truth, And sent them here through hard assays With a crown of deathless praise,

��To triumph in victorious dance

O'er sensual Folly and Intemperance.

The dances ended, the SPIRIT epiloguizes.

Spir. To the ocean now I fly, And those happy climes that lie Where day never shuts his eye, Up in the broad fields of the sky. There I suck the liquid air, 980

All amidst the Gardens fair Of Hesperus, and his daughters three That sing about the Golden Tree. Along the crisped shades and bowers Revels the spruce and jocond Spring; The Graces and the rosy-bosomed Hours Thither all their bounties bring. There eternal Summer dwells, And west winds with musky wing About the cedarn alleys fling 99 o

Nard and cassia's balmy smells. Iris there with humid bow Waters the odorous banks, that blow Flowers of more mingled hue Than her purfled scarf can shew, And drenches with Elysian dew (List mortals, if your ears be true) Beds of hyacinth and roses, Where young Adonis oft reposes, Waxing well of his deep wound 1000

In slumber soft, and on the ground Sadly sits the Assyrian queen; But far above in spangled sheen Celestial Cupid, her famed son, advanced, Holds his dear Psyche sweet intranced, After her wandring labours long, Till free consent the gods among Make her his eternal Bride, And from her fair unspotted side Two blissful twins are to be born, 1010

Youth and Joy; so Jove hath sworn.

But now my task is smoothly done, I can fly, or I can run Quickly to the green earth's end, Where the bowed welkin slow doth bend, And from thence can soar as soon To the corners of the Moon.

Mortals, that would follow me, Love Virtue, she alone is free; She can teach ye how to climb 1020

Higher than the spheary chime: Or, if Virtue feeble were, Heaven itself would stoop to her.

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