Gentle Swain, at thy request,
I am here.

Sp. Goddess dear,

We implore thy powerful hand
To undo the charmed band

Of true virgin here distressed,
Through the force and through the wile,
Of unblessed enchanter vile.

Sabr. Shepherd, 'tis my office best
To help ensnared chastity:
Brightest Lady, look on me;
Thus I sprinkle on thy breast
Drops, that from my fountain pure
I have kept, of precious cure;
Thrice upon thy finger's tip,
Thrice upon thy rubied lip:
Next this marble venomed seat,
Smeared with gums of glutinous heat,
I touch with chaste palms moist and cold:-
Now the spell hath lost his hold,
And I must haste, ere morning hour,
To wait ir. Amphitrite's bower.

Sabrina descends, and the Lady rises out of her seat. Sp. Virgin, daughter of Locrine Sprung of old Anchises' line, May thy brimmed waves for this Their full tribute never miss From a thousand petty rills, That tumble down the snowy hills: Summer drouth, or singed air, Never scorch thy tresses fair, Nor wet October's torrent flood Thy molten crystal fill with mud; May thy billows roll ashore The beryl and the golden ore; May thy lofty head be crowned With many a tower and terrace round, And here and there thy banks upon With groves of myrrh and cinnamon.

Come, Lady, while Heaven lends us grace,

Let us fly this cursed place,
Lest the sorcerer us entice

With some other new device.
Not a waste or needless sound,
Till we come to holier ground;
I shall be your faithful guide
Through this gloomy covert wide,
And not many furlongs thence
Is your Father's residence,
Where this night are met in state
Many a friend to gratulate
His wished presence; and beside
All the swains, that there abide,
With jigs and rural dance resort;
We shall catch them at their sport,
And our sudden coming there

Will double all their mirth and cheer:

Come, let us haste, the stars grow high,

But night sits monarch yet in the mid sky.

The scene changes, presenting Ludlow town and the President's castle; then come in Country Dancers, after them the Attendant Spirit, with the two Brothers, and the Lady.

SONG.

Sp. Back, Shepherds, back; enough you play, Till next sun-shine holiday:

Here be, without duck or nod,

Other trippings to be trod

Of lighter toes, and such court guise
As Mercury did first devise,
With the mincing dryades,

On the lawns, and on the leas.

This second Song presents them to their Father and Mother.

Noble Lord, and Lady bright,
I have brought ye new delight;
Here behold so goodly grown
Three fair branches of your own;
Heaven hath timely tried their youth,
Their faith, their patience, and their truth,
And sent them here through hard assays
With a crown of deathless praise,
To triumph in victorious dance
O'er sensual Folly and Intemperance.

The Dances ended, the Spirit epiloguises.

Sp. To the ocean now I fly,
And those happy climes that lie
Where day never shuts his eye,
Up in the broad fields of the sky:
There I suck the liquid air
All amidst the gardens fair
Of Hesperus, and his daughters three
That sing about the golden tree :
Along the crisped shades and bowers
Revels the spruce and jocund Spring;
The Graces, and the rosy-bosom'd Hours,
Thither all their bounties bring;
There eternal Summer dwells,
And West-Winds, with musky wing,
About the cedared alleys fling
Nard and Cassia's balmy smells.
Iris there with humid bow
Waters the odorous banks, that blow
Flowers of more mingled hue
Than the purfled scarf can shew;
And drenches with Elysian dew
(List, mortals, if your ears be true)
Beds of hyacinth and roses,
Where young Adonis oft reposes,
Waxing well of his deep wound
In slumber soft, and on the ground
Sadly sits th' Assyrian queen:
But far above in spangled sheen
Celestial Cupid, her famed son, advanced,
Holds his dear Psyche sweet entranced,

After her wandering labours long,
Till free consent the gods among
Make her his eternal bride,
And from her fair unspotted side
Two blissful twins are to be born,
Youth and Joy; so Jove hath sworn.

But now my task is smoothly done,
I can fly, or I can run,
Quickly to the green earth's end,

Where the bow'd welkin slow doth bend;
And from thence can soar as soon
To the corners of the moon.

Mortals, that would follow me,
Love Virtue; she alone is free :
She can teach ye how to climb
Higher than the sphery chime;
Or if Virtue feeble were,
Heaven itself would stoop to her.

ANNO ETATIS 17.

ON THE DEATH OF A FAIR INFANT

DYING OF A COUGH.

O FAIREST flower, no sooner blown but blasted,
Soft silken primrose fading timelessly,
Summer's chief honour, if thou had'st outlasted

For he, being amorous on that lovely dye

That did thy cheek envermeil, thought to kiss, But killed, alas! and then bewailed his fatal bliss.

For since grim Aquilo, his charioteer,
By boisterous rape the Athenian damsel got,
He thought it touched his deity full near,
If likewise he some fair one wedded not,
Thereby to wipe away the infamous blot

Of long uncoupled bed, and childless eld, Which 'mongst the wanton gods, a foul reproach

was held.

So, mounting up in icy-pearled car,
Through middle empire of the freezing air
He wandered long, till thee he spied from far;
There ended was his quest, there ceased his care:
Down he descended from his snow-soft chair,

But, all unwares, with his cold kind embrace, Unhoused thy virgin soul from her fair biding place.

Yet art thou not inglorious in thy fate;
For so Apollo, with unweeting hand,
Whilom did slay his dearly loved mate,
Young Hyacinth, born on Eurotas' strand:
Young Hyacinth, the pride of Spartan land;

But then transformed him to a purple flower:
Alack, that so to change thee Winter had no power!
Yet can I not persuade me thou art dead,
Or that thy corse corrupts in earth's dark womb,
Or that thy beauties lie in wormy bed,
Hid from the world in a low delved tomb;

O say me true, if thou wert mortal wight, And why from us so quickly thou did'st take thy flight?

Wert thou some star which from the ruined roof
Of shaked Olympus by mischance did'st fall;
Which careful Jove in nature's true behoof
Took up, and in fit place did reinstall?
Or did of late earth's sons besiege the wall

Of sheeny Heaven, and thou some goddess fled
Amongst us here below to hide thy nectared head?
Or wert thou that just Maid, who once before
Forsook the hated earth, O tell me sooth,
And camest again to visit us once more?
Or wert thou that sweet smiling youth?
Or that crowned matron sage, white-robed Truth?

Or any other of that heavenly brood

Let down in cloudy throne to do the world some good?

Or wert thou of the golden-winged host,
Who, having clad thyself in human weed,
To earth from thy prefixed seat did'st post,
And after short abode fly back with speed,
As if to show what creatures Heaven doth breed;

Thereby to set the hearts of men on fire,
To scorn the sordid world, and unto Heaven aspire?
But oh! why did'st thou not stay here below
To bless us with thy heavenly-loved innocence,
To slake his wrath, whom sin hath made our foe,
To turn swift-rushing black perdition hence,
Or drive away the slaughtering pestilence,

To stand 'twixt us and our deserved smart? But thou can'st best perform that office where thou

art.

Then thou, the mother of so sweet a child,
Her false-imagined loss cease to lament,
And wisely learn to curb thy sorrows wild;
Think what a present thou to God hast sent,
And render him with patience what he lent;
This if thou do, he will an offspring give,

May tell at length how green eyed Neptune raves,
In Heaven's defiance mustering all his waves;
Then sing of secret things that came to pass
When beldam Nature in her cradle was;

And last of kings, and queens, and heroes old,
Such as the wise Demodocus once told
In solemn songs at king Alcinous' feast,
While sad Ulysses' soul, and all the rest,
Are held with his melodious harmony
In willing chains and sweet captivity.

to live.

ANNO ÆTATIS 19.

At a Vacation Exercise in the college, part Latin, part Eng. lish. The Latin speeches ended, the English thus began.

HAIL, native Language, that by sinews weak
Did'st move my first endeavouring tongue to speak,
And madest imperfect words with childish trips
Half unpronounced, slide through my infant lips,
Driving dumb Silence from the portal door,
Where he had mutely sat two years before!
Here I salute thee, and thy pardon ask,
That now I use thee in my latter task:
Small loss it is that thence can come unto thee,
I know my tongue but little grace can do thee :
Thou needest not be ambitious to be first,
Believe me I have thither packed the worst:
And, if it happens as I did forecast,

The daintiest dishes shall be served up last,
I pray thee then deny me not thy aid,

For this same small neglect that I have made:
But haste thee straight to do me once a pleasure,
And from thy wardrobe bring the chiefest treasure.
Not those new fangled toys, and trimming slight
Which takes our late fantastics with delight;
But cull those richest robes, and gayest attire,
Which deepest spirits, and choicest wits desire.
I have some naked thoughts that rove about,
And loudly knock to have their passage out;
And, weary of their place do only stay
Till thou hast decked them in thy best array;
That so they may, without suspect or fears,
Fly swiftly to this fair assembly's ears;
Yet I had rather, if I were to choose,
Thy service in some graver subject use,
Such as may make thee search thy coffers round,
Before thou clothe my fancy in fit sound:

Such where the deep transported mind may soar
Above the wheeling poles, and at Heaven's door
Look in, and see each blissful deity
How he before the thunderous throne doth lie,
Listening to what unshorn Apollo sings
To the touch of golden wires, while Hebe brings
Immortal nectar to her kingly sire:
Then passing through the spheres of watchful fire
And misty regions of wide air next under,

And hills of snow, and lofts of piled thunder,

Expectance calls thee now another way;
Thou knowest it must be now thy only bent
To keep in compass of thy predicament:
Then quick about thy proposed business come,
That to the next I may resign my room.

Then Ens is represented as father of the predicaments his two sons, whereof the eldest stood for substance with his canons, which Ens, thus speaking, explains.

Good luck befriend thee, son; for at thy birth, The fairy ladies danced upon the hearth;

Thy drowsy nurse hath sworn she did them spy
Come tripping to the room where thou didst lie,
And sweetly singing round about thy bed,
Strew all their blessings on thy sleeping head,
She heard them give thee this, that thou shouldst

still

From eyes of mortals walk invisible:
Yet there is something that doth force my fear; }
For once it was my dismal hap to hear
A sybil old, bow-bent with crooked age,
That far events full wisely could presage,
And in time's long and dark prospective glass
Foresaw what future days should bring to pass;
"Your son," said she, (" nor can you it prevent,)
Shall subject be to many an accident.

O'er all his brethren he shall reign as king,
Yet every one shall make him underling;
And those that can not live from him asunder,
Ungratefully shall strive to keep him under;
In worth and excellence he shall outgo them,
Yet, being above them, he shall be below them;
From others he shall stand in need of nothing,
Yet on his brother shall depend for clothing.
To find a foe it shall not be his hap;

And peace shall lull him in her flowery lap;
Yet shall he live in strife, and at his door
Devouring war shall never cease to roar;
Yea, it shall be his natural property
To harbour those that are at enmity.
What power, what force, what mighty spell, if not
Your learned hands, can loose this Gordian knot?"

The next Quantity and Quality spake in prose, then Rela tion was called by his name.

Rivers, arise; whether thou be the son Of utmost Tweed, or Oose, or gulfy Dun, Or Trent, who, like some earthborn giant spreads His thirty arms along the indented meads;

Or sullen Mole, that runneth underneath;

Or Severn swift, guilty of maiden's death;

Or rocky Avon, or of sedgy Lee,

Or coaly Time, or ancient hallowed Dee;

Or Humber loud, that keeps the Scythian's name;

Or Medway smooth, or royal towered Thame.

[The rest was prose.]

ON THE MORNING OF CHRIST'S NATIVITY.

COMPOSED 1629.

This is the month, and this the happy morn,
Wherein the Son of Heaven's eternal King,
Of wedded maid and virgin mother born,
Our great redemption from above did bring;
For so the holy sages once did sing,

That he our deadly forfeit should release, And with his Father work us a perpetual peace.

That glorious form, that light unsufferable,

And that far-beaming blaze of majesty, Wherewith he wont at heaven's high counciltable

To sit the midst of Trinal Unity,

He laid aside; and, here with us to be,

Forsook the courts of everlasting day,

And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay.

Say, heavenly Muse, shall not thy sacred vein
Afford a present to the Infant God?
Hast thou no verse, no hymn, or solemn strain,
To welcome him to this his new abode,

Now while the Heaven, by the sun's team untrod,
Hath took no print of the approaching light,
And all the spangled host keep watch in squadrons
bright?

See, how from far, upon the eastern road
The star-led wizards, haste with odours sweet;
O run, prevent them with thy humbie ode,
And lay it lowly at his blessed feet:
Have thou the honour first thy Lord to greet,
And join thy voice unto the angel choir

From out his secret altar, touched with hallowed

fire.

THE HYMN.

It was the winter wild,

While the Heaven-born child,

All meanly wrapt, in the rude manger lies;

Nature, in awe to him,

Had doffed her gaudy trim,

With her great Master so to sympathize: It was no season then for her

To wanton with the sun, her lusty paramour.

Only with speeches fair

She woos the gentle air

To hide her guilty front with innocent snow;

And on her naked shame.

Pollute with sinful blame,

The saintly veil of maiden white to throw;

Confounded, that her Maker's eyes

Should look so near upon her foul deformities.

But he, her fears to cease,

Sent down the meek eyed Peace;

She, crowned with olive green, came softly sliding

Down through the turning sphere,
His ready harbinger,

With turtle wing the amorous clouds dividing; And, waving wide her myrtle wand,

She strikes an universal peace through sea and land.

Nor war, or battle's sound
Was heard the world around:

The idle spear and shield were high up hung;
The hooked chariot stood,
Unstained with hostile blood;

The trumpet spake not to the armed throng; And kings sat still with awful eye,

As if they surely knew their sovereign Lord was by.

But peaceful was the night,
Wherein the Prince of light

His reign of peace upon the earth began:
The winds, with wonder whist,
Smoothly the waters kist,

Whispering new joys to the mild ocean,
Who now hath quite forgot to rave,

While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmed

wave.

The stars, with deep amaze,
Stand fixed in steadfast gaze

Bending one way their precious influence;
And will not take their flight,
For all the morning light,

Or Lucifer that often warned them thence;
But in their glimmering orbs did glow,

Until their Lord himself bespake, and bid them go.

And, though the shady gloom

Had given day her room,

The sun himself withheld his wonted speed,

And hid his head for shame,

As his inferior flame

The new enlightened world no more should need;

He saw a greater sun appear

Than his bright throne, or burning axletree, could

At last surrounds their sight

A globe of circular light.

day.

Yea, Truth and Justice then

Will down return to men,

Orbed in a rainbow; and, like glories wearing,

Mercy will sit between,

Throned in celestial sheen;

With radiant feet the tissued clouds down steer

ing;

And Heaven, as at some festival,

Will open wide the gates of her high palace hall.

But wisest Fate says no,

This must not yet be so,

The babe yet lies in smiling infancy,

That on the bitter cross

Must redeem our loss:

So both himself and us to glorify:

Yet first to those ychained in sleep,

The wakeful trump of doom must thunder through

the deep!

With such a horrid clang

rayed;

The helmed cherubim,

And sworded seraphim,

While the red fire and smouldering clouds outbrake:

played;

- Harping in loud and solemn choir,

The aged earth aghast,

Shall from the surface to the centre shake;

When, at the world's last session,