Miltons Comus | Page 9

mine ear be true,?My best guide now. Methought it was the sound?Of riot and ill-managed merriment, 172 Such as the jocund flute or gamesome pipe?Stirs up among the loose unlettered hinds,?When, for their teeming flocks and granges full,?In wanton dance they praise the bounteous Pan,?And thank the gods amiss. I should be loth?To meet the rudeness and swilled insolence?Of such late wassailers; yet, oh! where else?Shall I inform my unacquainted feet 180 In the blind mazes of this tangled wood??My brothers, when they saw me wearied out?With this long way, resolving here to lodge?Under the spreading favour of these pines,?Stepped, as they said, to the next thicket-side?To bring me berries, or such cooling fruit?As the kind hospitable woods provide.?They left me then when the grey-hooded Even,?Like a sad votarist in palmer's weed,?Rose from the hindmost wheels of Phoebus' wain. 190 But where they are, and why they came not back,?Is now the labour of my thoughts. 'Tis likeliest?They had engaged their wandering steps too far;?And envious darkness, ere they could return,?Had stole them from me. Else, O thievish Night,?Why shouldst thou, but for some felonious end,?In thy dark lantern thus close up the stars?That Nature hung in heaven, and filled their lamps?With everlasting oil to give due light?To the misled and lonely traveller? 200 This is the place, as well as I may guess,?Whence even now the tumult of loud mirth?Was rife, and perfect in my listening ear;?Yet nought but single darkness do I find.?What might this be? A thousand fantasies?Begin to throng into my memory,?Of calling shapes, and beckoning shadows dire,?And airy tongues that syllable men's names?On sands and shores and desert wildernesses.?These thoughts may startle well, but not astound 210 The virtuous mind, that ever walks attended?By a strong siding champion, Conscience.?O, welcome, pure-eyed Faith, white-handed Hope,?Thou hovering angel girt with golden wings,?And thou unblemished form of Chastity!?I see ye visibly, and now believe?That He, the Supreme Good, to whom all things ill?Are but as slavish officers of vengeance,?Would send a glistering guardian, if need were,?To keep my life and honour unassailed.... 220 Was I deceived, or did a sable cloud?Turn forth her silver lining on the night??I did not err: there does a sable cloud?Turn forth her silver lining on the night,?And casts a gleam over this tufted grove.?I cannot 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 230
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, 240 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 earth's 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, 250 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, 260 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.--Hail, 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. 270
_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. 280
_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. 290
_Comus._ Two