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Drunk with idolatry, drunk with wine,
And fat regorged of bulls and goats,
Chanting their idol, and preferring
Before our living Dread who dwells
In Silo, his bright sanctuary;

Among them he a spirit of phrensy sent,
Who hurt their minds,

And urged them on with mad desire
To call in haste for their destroyer;
They, only set on sport and play,
Unweetingly impórtuned

Their own destruction to come speedy upon them.
So fond are mortal men,

Fallen into wrath divine,

As their own ruin on themselves to invite,
Insensate left, or to sense reprobate,

And with blindness internal struck.

2 Semichor. But he, though blind of sight, Despised, and thought extinguished quite, With inward eyes illuminated,

His fiery virtue roused

From under ashes into sudden flame;

And as an evening dragon came,

Assailant on the perched roosts

And nests in order ranged

Of tame villatic fowl; but as an eagle

His cloudless thunder bolted on their heads.

So virtue, given for lost,

Depressed, and overthrown, as seemed,

Like that self-begotten bird

In the Arabian woods embost,

That no second knows, nor third,

And lay erewhile a holocaust,

From out her ashy womb now teemed,

Revives, reflourishes, then vigorous most

When most unactive deemed;

And though her body die, her fame survives,

A secular bird, ages of lives.

Man. Come, come; no time for lamentation now, Nor much more cause; Samson hath quit himself Like Samson, and heroically hath finished

A life heroic, on his enemies

Fully revenged; hath left them years of mourning, And lamentation to the sons of Caphtor

Through all Philistian bounds, to Israël

Honour hath left, and freedom, let but them
Find courage to lay hold on this occasion;
To himself and father's house eternal fame;
And, which is best and happiest yet, all this
With God not parted from him, as was feared,
But favouring and assisting to the end.
Nothing is here for tears, nothing to wail

Or knock the breast; no weakness, no contempt,
Dispraise or blame; nothing but well and fair,
And what may quiet us in a death so noble.
Let us go find the body where it lies

Soaked in his enemies' blood; and from the stream,
With lavers pure, and cleansing herbs, wash off
The clotted gore. I, with what speed the while
(Gaza is not in plight to say us nay),

Will send for all my kindred, all my friends,
To fetch him hence, and solemnly attend

With silent obsequy, and funeral train,

Home to his father's house: there will I build him
A monument, and plant it round with shade
Of laurel ever green, and branching palm,
With all his trophies hung, and acts enrolled
In copious legend, or sweet lyric song.
Thither shall all the valiant youth resort,
And from his memory inflame their breasts
To matchless valour, and adventures high:
The virgins also shall, on feastful days,
Visit his tomb with flowers; only bewailing
His lot unfortunate in nuptial choice,
From whence captivity and loss of eyes.
Chor. All is best, though we oft doubt
What the unsearchable dispose

Of highest Wisdom brings about,
And ever best found in the close.

Oft he seems to hide his face,

But unexpectedly returns,

And to his faithful champion hath in place
Bore witness gloriously; whence Gaza mourns,
And all that band them to resist

His uncontrollable intent;

His servants he, with new acquist

Of true experience, from this great event,
With peace and consolation hath dismist,

And calm of mind, all passion spent.

COMUS:

A MASK.

PRESENTED AT LUDLOW CASTLE, 1634.

BEFORE

JOHN EARL OF BRIDGEWATER,

THEN PRESIDENT OF WALES.

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

JOHN LORD VISCOUNT BRACKLEY,

SON AND HEIR APPARENT TO THE EARL OF BRIDGEWATER, &c.

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 producing 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 expression,

Your faithful and most humble servant,

H. LAWES.

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COMUS.

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 aëreal 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 servants,
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,
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 sapphire 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;
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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