Four Poems | Page 8

cotes,
Or sound of
pastoral reed with oaten stops,
Or whistle from the lodge, or village
cock
Count the night-watches to his feathery dames,
'T would be
some solace yet, some little cheering,
In this close dungeon of
innumerous boughs.
But, oh, that hapless virgin, our lost sister!

Where may she wander now, whither betake her
From the chill dew,
amongst rude burs and thistles
Perhaps some cold bank is her bolster
now,
Or 'gainst the rugged bark of some broad elm
Leans her
unpillowed head, fraught with sad fears.
What if in wild amazement

and affright,
Or, while we speak, within the direful grasp
Of savage
hunger, or of savage heat!
ELD. BRO. Peace, brother: be not over-exquisite
To cast the fashion
of uncertain evils;
For, grant they be so, while they rest unknown,

What need a man forestall his date of grief,
And run to meet what he
would most avoid?
Or, if they be but false alarms of fear,
How
bitter is such self-delusion!
I do not think my sister so to seek,
Or
so unprincipled in virtue's book,
And the sweet peace that goodness
bosoms ever,
As that the single want of light and noise
(Not being
in danger, as I trust she is not)
Could stir the constant mood of her
calm thoughts,
And put them into misbecoming plight.
Virtue could
see to do what Virtue would
By her own radiant light, though sun and
moon
Were in the flat sea sunk. And Wisdom's self
Oft seeks to
sweet retired solitude,
Where, with her best nurse, Contemplation,

She plumes her feathers, and lets grow her wings,
That, in the various
bustle of resort,
Were all to-ruffled, and sometimes impaired.
He
that has light within his own clear breast
May sit i' the centre, and
enjoy bright day:
But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts

Benighted walks under the mid-day sun;
Himself is his own dungeon.
SEC. BRO. 'Tis most true That musing meditation most affects
The
pensive secrecy of desert cell,
Far from the cheerful haunt of men and
herds,
And sits as safe as in a senate house
For who would rob a
hermit of his weeds,
His few books, or his beads, or maple dish,
Or
do his grey hairs any violence?
But Beauty, like the fair Hesperian
tree
Laden with blooming gold, had need the guard
Of
dragon-watch with unenchanted eye
To save her blossoms, and
defend her fruit,

From the rash hand of bold Incontinence.
You may
as well spread out the unsunned heaps
Of miser's treasure by an
outlaw's den,
And tell me it is safe, as bid me hope
Danger will
wink on Opportunity,
And let a single helpless maiden pass

Uninjured in this wild surrounding waste.
Of night or loneliness it

recks me not;
I fear the dread events that dog them both,
Lest some
ill-greeting touch attempt the person
Of our unowned sister.
ELD. BRO. I do not, brother,
Infer as if I thought my sister's state

Secure without all doubt or controversy;
Yet, where an equal poise of
hope and fear
Does arbitrate the event, my nature is
That I incline
to hope rather than fear,
And gladly banish squint suspicion.
My
sister is not so defenceless left
As you imagine; she has a hidden
strength,
Which you remember not.
SEC. BRO.. What hidden strength, Unless the strength of Heaven, if
you mean that?
ELD. BRO. I mean that too, but yet a hidden strength, Which, if
Heaven gave it, may be termed her own.
'Tis chastity, my brother,
chastity:
She that has that is clad in complete steel,
And, like a
quivered nymph with arrows keen,
May trace huge forests, and
unharboured heaths,
Infamous hills, and sandy perilous wilds;

Where, through the sacred rays of chastity,
No savage fierce, bandite,
or mountaineer,
Will dare to soil her virgin purity.
Yea, there where
very desolation dwells,
By grots and caverns shagged with horrid
shades,
She may pass on with unblenched majesty,
Be it not done in
pride, or in presumption.
Some say no evil thing that walks by night,

In fog or fire, by lake or moorish fen,
Blue meagre hag, or stubborn
unlaid ghost,
That breaks his magic chains at curfew time,
No
goblin or swart faery of the mine,
Hath hurtful power o'er true
virginity.
Do ye believe me yet, or shall I call
Antiquity from the
old schools of Greece
To testify the arms of chastity?
Hence had
the huntress Dian her dread bow
Fair silver-shafted queen for ever
chaste,
Wherewith she tamed the brinded lioness
And spotted
mountain-pard, but set at nought

The frivolous bolt of Cupid; gods
and men
Feared her stern frown, and she was queen o' the woods.

What was that snaky-headed Gorgon shield
That wise Minerva wore,
unconquered virgin,
Wherewith she freezed her foes to congealed

stone,
But rigid looks of chaste austerity,
And noble grace that
dashed brute violence
With sudden adoration and blank awe?
So
dear to Heaven is saintly chastity
That, when a soul is found sincerely
so,
A thousand liveried angels lackey her,
Driving far off each thing
of sin and guilt,
And in clear dream and solemn vision
Tell her of
things that no gross ear can hear;
Till oft converse with heavenly
habitants
Begin to cast a beam on the outward shape,
The
unpolluted temple of the mind,
And turns it by degrees to the soul's
essence,
Till all be made immortal. But, when lust,
By unchaste