Four Poems | Page 7

hallo to my brothers, but
Such noise as I can make to be heard
farthest
I'll venture; for my new-enlivened spirits
Prompt me, and
they perhaps are not far off.
Song.
Sweet Echo, sweetest nymph, that liv'st unseen
Within thy airy shell
By slow Meander's margent green,
And in the

violet-embroidered vale
Where the love-lorn nightingale
Nightly to thee her sad song
mourneth well:
Canst thou not tell me of a gentle pair
That likest thy Narcissus are?
O, if thou have
Hid them in some flowery cave,
Tell me but where,
Sweet Queen of Parley, Daughter of the Sphere!

So may'st thou be translated to the skies,
And give resounding
grace to all Heaven's harmonies!
COMUS. Can any mortal mixture of earthUs mould
Breathe such
divine enchanting ravishment?
Sure something holy lodges in that
breast,
And with these raptures moves the vocal air
To testify his
hidden residence.
How sweetly did they float upon the wings
Of
silence, through the empty-vaulted night,
At every fall smoothing the
raven down
Of darkness till it smiled! I have oft heard
My mother
Circe with the Sirens three,
Amidst the flowery-kirtled Naiades,

Culling their potent herbs and baleful drugs,
Who, as they sung,
would take the prisoned soul,
And lap it in Elysium: Scylla wept,

And chid her barking waves into attention,
And fell Charybdis
murmured soft applause.
Yet they in pleasing slumber lulled the
sense,
And in sweet madness robbed it of itself;
But such a sacred
and home-felt delight,
Such sober certainty of waking bliss,
I never
heard till now. I'll speak to her,
And she shall be my queen.QHail,
foreign wonder!
Whom certain these rough shades did never breed,

Unless the goddess that in rural shrine
Dwell'st here with Pan or
Sylvan, by blest song
Forbidding every bleak unkindly fog
To
touch the prosperous growth of this tall wood.
LADY. Nay, gentle shepherd, ill is lost that praise That is addressed to
unattending ears.
Not any boast of skill, but extreme shift
How to
regain my severed company,
Compelled me to awake the courteous

Echo
To give me answer from her mossy couch.
COMUS: What chance, good lady, hath bereft you thus? LADY. Dim
darkness and this leafy labyrinth.
COMUS. Could that divide you
from near-ushering guides? LADY. They left me weary on a grassy turf.

COMUS. By falsehood, or discourtesy, or why?
LADY. To seek i'
the valley some cool friendly spring. COMUS. And left your fair side
all unguarded, Lady? LADY. They were but twain, and purposed quick
return. COMUS. Perhaps forestalling night prevented them.
LADY.
How easy my misfortune is to hit!
COMUS. Imports their loss, beside
the present need? LADY. No less than if I should my brothers lose.

COMUS. Were they of manly prime, or youthful bloom? LADY. As
smooth as Hebe's their unrazored lips.
COMUS. Two such I saw,
what time the laboured ox
In his loose traces from the furrow came,

And the swinked hedger at his supper sat.
I saw them under a green
mantling vine,
That crawls along the side of yon small hill,

Plucking ripe clusters from the tender shoots;
Their port was more
than human, as they stood.
I took it for a faery vision
Of some gay
creatures of the element,
That in the colours of the rainbow live,

And play i' the plighted clouds. I was awe-strook,
And, as I passed, I
worshiped. If those you seek,
It were a journey like the path to
Heaven
To help you find them.
LADY. Gentle villager,
What readiest way would bring me to that
place?
COMUS. Due west it rises from this shrubby point.
LADY. To find
out that, good shepherd, I suppose,
In such a scant allowance of
star-light,
Would overtask the best land-pilot's art,
Without the sure
guess of well-practised feet.
COMUS. I know each lane, and every alley green,
Dingle, or bushy
dell, of this wild wood,
And every bosky bourn from side to side,

My daily walks and ancient neighbourhood;
And, if your stray

attendance be yet lodged,
Or shroud within these limits, I shall know

Ere morrow wake, or the low-roosted lark
From her thatched pallet
rouse. If otherwise,
I can conduct you, Lady, to a low
But loyal
cottage, where you may be safe
Till further quest.
LADY. Shepherd, I take thy word,
And trust thy honest-offered
courtesy,
Which oft is sooner found in lowly sheds,
With smoky
rafters, than in tapestry halls
And courts of princes, where it first was
named,
And yet is most pretended. In a place
Less warranted than
this, or less secure,
I cannot be, that I should fear to change it.
Eye
me, blest Providence, and square my trial
To my proportioned
strength! Shepherd, lead on.
The TWO BROTHERS.
ELD. BRO. Unmuffle, ye faint stars; and thou, fair moon, That wont'st
to love the traveller's benison,
Stoop thy pale visage through an
amber cloud,
And disinherit Chaos, that reigns here
In double night
of darkness and of shades;
Or, if your influence be quite dammed up

With black usurping mists, some gentle taper,
Though a
rush-candle from the wicker hole
Of some clay habitation, visit us

With thy long levelled rule of streaming light,
And thou shalt be our
star of Arcady,
Or Tyrian Cynosure.
SEC. BRO. Or, if our eyes
Be barred that happiness, might we but
hear
The folded flocks, penned in their wattled