L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas

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 looks, loose gestures, and foul talk,
But most by lewd and lavish act of sin,
Lets in 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 welclass="underline" 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, 't is my father's Shepherd, sure.

ELD. BRO. Thyrsis! whose artful strains have oft 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 ignorance)

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