COMUS enters with a charming rod in one hand, his glass in the other; with him a rout of monsters, headed like sundry sorts of wild beasts, but otherwise like men and women, their apparel glistering; they come in making a riotous and unruly noise, with torches in their hands. COMUS. The star that bids the shepherd fold, Now the top of heaven doth hold;

And the gilded car of day

95

His glowing axle doth allay
In the steep Atlantic stream;

And the slope sun his upward beam
Shoots against the dusky pole,
Pacing toward the other goal

Of his chamber in the east.

Meanwhile welcome Joy, and Feast,
Midnight Shout and Revelry,
Tipsy Dance and Jollity.

Braid your locks with rosy twine,
Dropping odours, dropping wine.
Rigour now is gone to bed,
And Advice with scrupulous head,
Strict Age, and sour Severity,

With their grave saws in slumber lie.
We that are of purer fire

100

105

110

93 star] Chapman's Homer's Hymn to Pan. When Hes

perus calls to fold the flocks of men.'

97 Atlantic] Beaumont's Psyche, c. iii. s. xi. p. 27.

108 Advice] The Cambridge MS. And quick Law,' which Warburton prefers.

Imitate the starry quire,

Who in their nightly watchful spheres,
Lead in swift round the months and years.
The sounds and seas, with all their finny drove,
Now to the moon in wavering morrice move;
And on the tawny sands and shelves
Trip the pert fairies and the dapper elves.
By dimpled brook, and fountain brim,
The wood-nymphs deck'd with daisies trim,
Their merry wakes and pastimes keep;
What hath night to do with sleep?
Night hath better sweets to prove,
Venus now wakes, and wakens Love.
Come let us our rights begin,

'Tis only day-light that makes sin,
Which these dun shades will ne'er report.
Hail Goddess of nocturnal sport,

120

125

Dark-veil'd Cotytto, t' whom the secret flame
Of midnight torches burns; mysterious dame, 130
That ne'er art call'd, but when the dragon womb
Of Stygian darkness spets her thickest gloom,
And makes one blot of all the air;

Stay thy cloudy ebon chair,

Wherein thou rid'st with Hecat, and befriend 135 Us thy vow'd priests, till utmost end

123 Night]

'They soone bring night, Other sweets to waite thee then.'

Donne's Poems, p. 121.

And see Seven Champions of Christendom, p. 55. 4to. 1638. 125 rights] Rites.' Fenton, Newton, Warton, (ed. 1). 132 spets] Spits.' Fenton, Tickell, Newton, wrongly.

Of all thy dues be done, and none left out,
Ere the babbling eastern scout,

The nice morn, on th' Indian steep

From her cabin'd loophole 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,
And to my wily trains; I shall ere long
Be well-stock'd with as fair a herd as graz'd
mother Circe. Thus I hurl

About my

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,

139 steep]

'Aurora rose with ruddy face upon the Indian Heaven.' Sylvest. Du Bartas, p. 392. 140 loophole] See note on Lallah Rookh, p. 393, ed. 8vo. 154 spungy] G. Peele's Works, by Dyce, ii. 262. ed. 1829. 'Not clouds cast from this spungie element.' This word is used in N. Richards's Messalina, Sig. B 7, shall squeeze their spungie virtue into vice.'

And put the damsel to suspicious flight,

Which must not be, for that's against my course:

I, under fair pretence of friendly ends,

And well-plac'd 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.

160

165

170

This way the noise was, if mine ear be true,
My best guide now; methought it was the sound
Of riot and ill-manag'd merriment,
Such as the jocund flute, or gamesome pipe
Stirs up among the loose unletter'd hinds,
When for their teeming flocks, and granges full,
In wanton dance, they praise the bounteous Pan,
And thank the Gods amiss. I should be loath

161 glozing] See Sylvester's Du Bartas, p. 92.

163 Wind] Win. Tickell, Fenton.

165 magic dust] This referred to ver. 154, 'my dazzling spells,' which originally stood powdered spells.'

166 I shall appear] The ed. of 1673,

'I shall appear some harmless villager,

And hearken, if I may, her business here.
But here she comes, I fairly step aside.'

Where, besides the transposition, the line, Whom thrift,' &c. is omitted.

Warton.

168 fairly] softly. Hurd.

To meet the rudeness, and swill'd insolence
Of such late wassailers; yet O where else
Shall I inform my unacquainted feet

180

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,
Stepp'd, as they said, to the next thicket side 185
To bring me berries, or such cooling fruit
As the kind hospitable woods provide.
They left me then, when the gray-hooded Even,
Like a sad votarist in palmer's weed,

189

Rose from the hindmost wheels of Phoebus' wain.
But where they are, and why they came not back,
Is now the labour of my thoughts; 'tis likeliest
They had engag'd their wand'ring steps too far;
And envious darkness, ere they could return,
Had stole them from me: else, O thievish Night,
Why shouldst 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

To the misled and lonely traveller?

This is the place, as well as I may guess,
Whence even now the tumult of loud mirth

200

180 inform] Sams. Agon, 335. inform'd your younger

feet,' Warton.

189 votarist] Benlowe's Theophila, p. 32 and

p. 60.

Sad votaresse! thy Earth of late o'ergrown

With weeds,' &c.

195 thievish] P. Fletcher's Pisc. Eclog. p. 34, ed. 1633,

'The thievish night steals on the world.' Warton.