Here behold so goodly grown Three fair branches of your own; Heaven hath timely tried their youth, Their faith, their patience, and their truth To triumph in victorious dance O'er sensual Folly and Intemperance. The Dances being ended, the SPIRIT epiloguizes. Spi. 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 All amidst the gardens fair Of Hesperus,1 and his daughters three About the cedar'n alleys fling Waters the odorous banks, that blow Flowers of more mingled hue Than her purfled2 scarf can shew; And drenches with Elysian dew Beds of hyacinth and roses, ''Hesperus:' see Ovid, Met. ix.—3 'Purfled:' fringed. 984 990 1000 1010 Where young Adonis oft reposes, Quickly to the green earth's end, Where the bow'd welkin slow doth bend ; To the corners of the moon. Mortals, that would follow me, Love Virtue; she alone is free: She can teach ye how to climb Higher than the sphery chime;8 Or if Virtue feeble were, Heaven itself would stoop to her. เ 1015 1030 Assyrian queen:' Venus.- 'Cupid' and 'Psyche :' see Emerson's Essay on Love.'- 'Sphery chime:' music of spheres. ARCADES.1 Part of an Entertainment presented to the COUNTESS OF DERBY at Harefield by some noble persons of her family, who appear on the scene in pastoral habit, moving toward the seat of state with this Song :— I. SONG. LOOK, Nymphs and Shepherds, look, Is that which we from hence descry, This, this is she 2 To whom our vows and wishes bend; Fame, that, her high worth to raise, 10 ''Arcades:' the fragment of a larger performance, the rest of which was probably in prose. It was performed at Harefield before the Countess of Derby, its heroine, not later than 1636. She was married at the time to Lord Chancellor Egerton, and died in 1635-6. She was related to Edmund Spenser, who celebrated her, when a widow, in his 'Colin Clout's come home again,' as Amaryllis.-2 This is she:' namely, the Countess of Derby. Mark, what radiant state she spreads, Sitting, like a goddess bright, Might she the wise Latona1 be, Who had thought this clime had held 14 20 As they come forward, the GENIUS of the Wood appears, and turning towards them, speaks. Gen. Stay, gentle Swains; for, though in this disguise, Of that renowned flood, so often sung, Latona:' Diana. 2 Cybele: mother of the gods. 30 And lead where That sit upon the nine infolded spheres, 40 50 60 1 'Syrens: this is an apt allusion to Plato's notion of Fate or Necessity holding a spindle of adamant, while, with her three daughters, Lachesis, Clotho, and Atropos, she conducts a ravishing musical harmony. Nine Syrens or Muses sit on the summit of the spheres, and produce a music, in harmony with which the spindle revolves, and the three daughters of Fate for ever sing -a notion involving many and mysterious lessons. |