Four Poems | Page 5

hermitage,
The
hairy gown and mossy cell,
Where I may sit and rightly spell
Of
every star that heaven doth shew,
And every herb that sips the dew,

Till old experience do attain
To something like prophetic strain.

These pleasures, Melancholy, give;
And I with thee will choose to
live.
COMUS
A MASQUE PRESENTED AT LUDLOW CASTLE, 1634,
BEFORE
THE EARL OF BRIDGEWATER, THEN PRESIDENT OF
WALES.
The Persons
The ATTENDANT SPIRIT, afterwards in the habit of THYRSIS.
COMUS, with his Crew.
The LADY.
FIRST BROTHER.

SECOND BROTHER.
SABRINA, the Nymph.
The Chief Persons which presented were:--
The Lord Brackley;
Mr. Thomas Egerton, his Brother;
The Lady
Alice Egerton.
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 aerial 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:
Where his fair offspring, nursed in princely lore,
Are
coming to attend their father's state,
And new-intrusted sceptre. But
their way
Lies through the perplexed paths of this drear wood,
The
nodding horror of whose shady brows
Threats the forlorn and
wandering passenger;
And here their tender age might suffer peril,

But that, by quick command from sovran Jove,
I was despatched for
their defence and guard:
And listen why; for I will tell you now

What never yet was heard in tale or song,
From old or modern bard,
in hall or bower.

Bacchus, that first from out the purple grape
Crushed the sweet
poison of misused wine,
After the Tuscan mariners transformed,

Coasting the Tyrrhene shore, as the winds listed,
On Circe's island
fell. (Who knows not Circe,
The daughter of the Sun, whose charmed
cup
Whoever tasted lost his upright shape,
And downward fell into
a grovelling swine?)
This Nymph, that gazed upon his clustering
locks,
With ivy berries wreathed, and his blithe youth,
Had by him,
ere he parted thence, a son
Much like his father, but his mother more,

Whom therefore she brought up, and Comus named:
Who, ripe and
frolic of his full-grown age,
Roving the Celtic and Iberian fields,
At
last betakes him to this ominous wood,
And, in thick shelter of black
shades imbowered,
Excels his mother at her mighty art;
Offering to
every weary traveller
His orient liquor in a crystal glass,
To quench
the drouth of Phoebus; which as they taste
(For most do taste through
fond intemperate thirst),
Soon as the potion works, their human
count'nance,
The express resemblance of the gods, is changed
Into
some brutish form of wolf or bear,
Or ounce or tiger, hog, or bearded
goat,
All other parts remaining as they were.
And they, so perfect is
their misery,
Not once perceive their foul disfigurement,
But boast
themselves more comely than before,
And all their friends and native
home forget,
To roll with pleasure in a sensual sty.
Therefore, when
any favoured of high Jove
Chances to pass through this adventurous
glade,
Swift as the sparkle of a glancing star
I shoot from heaven, to
give him safe convoy,
As now I do. But first I must put off
These
my sky-robes, spun out of Iris' woof,
And take the weeds and likeness
of a swain

That to the service of this house belongs,
Who, with his
soft pipe and smooth-dittied song,
Well knows to still the wild winds
when they roar,
And hush the waving woods; nor of less faith
And
in this office of his mountain watch
Likeliest, and nearest to the
present aid
Of this occasion. But I hear the tread
Of hateful steps; I
must be viewless now.
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
His glowing axle doth allay

In the