Page images
PDF
EPUB
[ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][merged small]
[graphic]

Trip the pert faeries and the dapper elves.
By dimpled brook and fountain brim,
The wood-nymphs, deck'd with daisies trim,
Their merry wakes and pastimes keep:

ENEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

ASTOR, LENOK AND TILDEN FOUNDATIONS.

What hath night to do with sleep?

Night hath better sweets to prove,

Venus now wakes, and wakens Love.

Come let us our rites begih,

'Tis only day-light that makes sin,

Which these dun shades will ne'er report.
Hail Goddess of nocturnal sport,

Dark-veil'd Cotytto, t' whom the secret flame

Of midnight torches burns; mysterious dame,

That ne'er art call'd, but when the dragon womb

Of Stygian darkness spits her thickest gloom,
And makes one blot of all the air,

125

130

Stay thy cloudy ebon chair,

Wherein thou rid'st with Hecat', and befriend 135

Us thy vow'd priests, till utmost end

Of all thy dues be done, and none left out

Ere the blabbing eastern scout,

The nice Morn on the Indian steep

From her cabin'd loop-hole peep,

And to the tell-tale Sun descry

Our conceal'd solemnity.

Come, knit hands, and beat the ground

In a light fantastic round.

The Measure.

140

Break off, break off, I feel the different pace

145

Of some chaste footing near about this ground.

Run to your shrouds, within these brakes and trees; Our number may affright: some virgin sure

(For so I can distinguish by mine art)

Benighted in these woods. Now to my charms, 150
And to my wily trains; I shall ere long

Be well stock'd with as fair a herd as grazed
About my mother Circe. Thus I hurl

My dazzling spells into the spungy air,

Of

power to cheat the eye with blear illusion,

155

And give it false presentments, lest the place
And my quaint habits breed astonishment,
And put the damsel to suspicious flight,

Which must not be, for that 's against my course; I under fair pretence of friendly ends,

120. Cotytto; the goddess of licentious pleasures. 41. Tell-tale; discovering the secrets of the night.

160

And well-placed words of glozing courtesy
Baited with reasons not unplausible,
Wind me into the easy-hearted man,

And hug him into snares. When once her eye
Hath met the virtue of this magic dust,

I shall appear some harmless villager
Whom thrift keeps up about his country gear
But here she comes, I fairly step aside,

And hearken, if I may, her business here.

The Lady enters.

This way the noise was, if mine ear be true,
My best guide now; methought it was the sound
Of riot and ill-managed merriment,

Such as the jocund flute or gamesome pipe
Stirs up among the loose unletter'd hinds,

165

170

When for their teeming flocks, and granges full, 175 In wanton dance they praise the bounteous Pan, And thank the Gods amiss.

I should be loath

To meet the rudeness and swill'd insolence
Of such late wassailers; yet O where else
Shall I inform my unacquainted feet
In the blind mazes of this tangled wood?
My brothers, when they saw me wearied out
With this long way, resolving here to lodge
Under the spreading favour of these pines,
Stept, as they said, to the next thicket side
To bring me berries, or such cooling fruit
As the kind hospitable woods provide.
They left me then, when the grey-hooded Even
Like a sad votarist in palmer's weed,

180

185

Rose from the hindmost wheels of Phoebus' wain. 190
But where they are, and why they came not back,
Is now the labour of my thought; 'tis likeliest
They had engaged their wand'ring steps too far,
And envious Darkness, ere they could return,
Had stole them from me: else, O thievish Night, 199
Why should'st thou, but for some felonious end,

In thy dark lantern thus close up the stars,

That Nature hung in Heav'n, and fill'd their lamps With everlasting oil, to give due light

181. Originally,

In the blind alleys of this arched wood.

« PreviousContinue »