COMUS.

With some other new device.
ot a waste, or needless sound,
ill we come to holier ground;
shall be your faithful guide
'hrough this gloomy covert wide,
and not many furlongs thence
s your Father's residence,
Where this night are met in state
Many a friend to gratulate
His wish'd presence, and beside
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.

119

945

950

955

The Scene changes, presenting Ludlow town and the President's castle; then come in country dancers, after them the ATTENDANT SPIRIT, with the Two BROTHERS, and the LADY.

SONG.

SP. Back, Shepherds, back, enough your play, Till next sunshine holiday;

Here be without duck or nod

951 there] So Milton's own edition, the MS. 'near.'

960

960 duck] K. Richard III. act i. sc. 3. Duck with French nods.' Warton.

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
and Mother.

Noble Lord, and Lady bright,
I have brought ye new delight,
Here behold so goodly grown
Three fair branches of your own;
Heav'n hath timely tried their youth,
Their faith, their patience, and their tru
And sent them here through hard assay:
With a crown of deathless praise,

To triumph in victorious dance.
O'er sensual folly, and intemperance.

The dances ended, the SPIRIT epiloguis
SP. 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

972 hard] Milton is fond of this expression. P. L. iv 'from hard assays.' P. Reg. i. 264. iv. 478. Todd. 979 broad] MS. 'plain fields.' Fairfax, B. viii. st.

O'er the broad fields of heaven's bright wilderness

Warton and 1

winds, with musky wing, cedarn alleys fling cassia's balmy smells.

with humid bow

e odorous banks, that blow f more mingled hue

purfled scarf can show, hes with Elysian dew

als, if your ears be true) yacinth and roses,

ung Adonis oft

reposes,

ell of his deep wound

r soft, and on the ground

th' Assyrian queen; bove in spangled sheen

Cupid her fam'd son advanc'd,

990

995

1000

Milton's own edition, 1673, reads 'That there, errata directs That' to be omitted; so it is by Fenton, but silently readopted by Newton.

Warton.

]See Cowley's Silva. p, 56, and Love's Riddle, ne musky kisses of the west wind.'

an] Tickel and Fenton read 'the Cyprian Queen.'

I can fly, or I can run

Quickly to the green earth's end,
Where the bow'd welkin slow doth b
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
Higher than the sphery chime:
Or, if Virtue feeble were,
Heav'n itself would stoop to her.

1017 corners] Macbeth, a. 3. s. 5. Upon th moon.' Warton.

1021 sphery] 'sphery chime' is the chime or spheres. Mids. N. Dream, act ii. sc. 7, H eyne.' Machin's Dumbe Knight, (Reed's Old 'It was as silver as the chime of spheres.' He p. 116, Fall down from those thy chiming spher Warton

1023 stoop]bow.' MS.

by

y, then in their height.

nore, O ye laurels, and once more brown, with ivy never sere,

luck your berries harsh and crude,

orc'd fingers rude,

ir leaves before the mellowing year. 5 traint, and sad occasion dear, e to disturb your season due: is is dead, dead ere his prime, idas, and hath not left his peer: 1 not sing for Lycidas? He knew sing, and build the lofty rhime. ot float upon his watery bier

10

rown] Hor. Od. i. 25. 17. • Pulla magis atque

rton.

Phillisides is dead.' Past. Ægl. on Sir P. Sidby L. B. v. 8 (Todd's Spenser, viii. 76), and

bowres of myrtel twigs, and lawrel faire.' Neget quis carmina Gallo.' Virg. Ecl. x. 3. Peck.

| See Theod. Prodrom. Dos. et Rhod. Am. p.

ulm.