Four Poems | Page 9

looks, loose gestures, and foul talk,
But most by lewd and lavish act
of sin,
Lets ill defilement to the inward parts,
The soul grows
clotted by contagion,
Imbodies, and imbrutes, till she quite loose

The divine property of her first being.
Such are those thick and
gloomy shadows damp
Oft seen in charnel-vaults and sepulchres,

Lingering and sitting by a new-made grave,
As loth to leave the body
that it loved,
And linked itself by carnal sensualty
To a degenerate
and degraded state.
SEC. BRO. How charming is divine Philosophy!
Not harsh and
crabbed, as dull fools suppose,
But musical as is Apollo's lute,
And
a perpetual feast of nectared sweets,
Where no crude surfeit reigns.
Eld. Bro. List! list! I hear
Some far-off hallo break the silent air.
SEC. BRO. Methought so too; what should it be?
ELD. BRO. For
certain.
Either some one, like us, night-foundered here,
Or else
some neighbour woodman, or, at worst,
Some roving robber calling
to his fellows.
SEC. BRO. Heaven keep my sister! Again, again, and
near!
Best draw, and stand upon our guard.
ELD. BRO. I'll hallo! If he be friendly, he comes well: if not,

Defence is a good cause, and Heaven be for us!
The ATTENDANT SPIRIT, habited like a shepherd.

That hallo I should know. What are you? speak.
Come not too near;
you fall on iron stakes else.
SPIR. What voice is that? my young Lord? speak again. SEC. BRO. O
brother, Tt is my father's Shepherd, sure. ELD. BRO. Thyrsis! whose
artful strains have of delayed The huddling brook to hear his madrigal,

And sweetened every musk-rose of the dale.
How camest thou here,
good swain? Hath any ram
Slipped from the fold, or young kid lost
his dam,
Or straggling wether the pent flock forsook?
How couldst
thou find this dark sequestered nook?
SPIR. O my loved master's heir, and his next joy,
I came not here on
such a trivial toy
As a strayed ewe, or to pursue the stealth
Of
pilfering wolf; not all the fleecy wealth
That doth enrich these downs
is worth a thought
To this my errand, and the care it brought.
But,
oh ! my virgin Lady, where is she?
How chance she is not in your
company?
ELD. BRO. To tell thee sadly, Shepherd, without blame Or our neglect,
we lost her as we came.
SPIR. Ay me unhappy! then my fears are true.
ELD. BRO. What
fears, good Thyrsis? Prithee briefly shew.
SPIR. I'll tell ye. 'T is not vain or fabulous
(Though so esteemed by
shallow igrlorance)
What the sage poets, taught by the heavenly
Muse,
Storied of old in high immortal verse
Of dire Chimeras and
enchanted isles,
And rifted rocks whose entrance leads to Hell;
For
such there be, but unbelief is blind.
Within the navel of this hideous wood,
Immured in cypress shades, a
sorcerer dwells,
Of Bacchus and of Circe born, great Comus,
Deep
skilled in all his mother's witcheries,
And here to every thirsty
wanderer
By sly enticement gives his baneful cup,
With many
murmurs mixed, whose pleasing poison
The visage quite transforms

of him that drinks,
And the inglorious likeness of a beast
Fixes
instead, unmoulding reason's mintage
Charactered in the face. This
have I learnt
Tending my flocks hard by i' the hilly crofts
That brow
this bottom glade; whence night by night
He and his monstrous rout
are heard to howl
Like stabled wolves, or tigers at their prey,
Doing
abhorred rites to Hecate
In their obscured haunts of inmost bowers.

Yet have they many baits and guileful spells
To inveigle and invite
the unwary sense
Of them that pass unweeting by the way.
This
evening late, by then the chewing flocks
Had ta'en their supper on the
savoury herb
Of knot-grass dew-besprent, and were in fold,
I sat me
down to watch upon a bank
With ivy canopied, and interwove
With
flaunting honeysuckle, and began,
Wrapt in a pleasing fit of
melancholy,
To meditate my rural minstrelsy,
Till fancy had her fill.
But ere a close
The wonted roar was up amidst the woods,
And
filled the air with barbarous dissonance;
At which I ceased, and
listened them awhile,
Till an unusual stop of sudden silence
Gave
respite to the drowsy-flighted steeds
That draw the litter of
close-curtained Sleep.
At last a soft and solemn-breathing sound

Rose like a steam of rich distilled perfumes,
And stole upon the air,
that even Silence
Was took ere she was ware, and wished she might

Deny her nature, and be never more,
Still to be so displaced. I was
all ear,
And took in strains that might create a soul
Under the ribs of
Death. But, oh! ere long
Too well I did perceive it was the voice
Of
my most honoured Lady, your dear sister.
Amazed I stood, harrowed
with grief and fear;
And RO poor hapless nightingale," thought I,

How sweet thou sing'st, how near the deadly snare!"
Then down the
lawns I ran with headlong haste,
Through paths and turnings often
trod by day,
Till, guided by mine ear, I found the place
Where that
damned wizard, hid in sly disguise
(For so by certain signs I knew),
had met
Already, ere my best speed could prevent,
The aidless
innocent lady, his wished prey;
Who gently asked if he had seen such
two,
Supposing him some neighbour villager.
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