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. Spir. Back, shepherds, back! Enough your 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. 960 The second Song presents them to their Father and Mother. Noble Lord and Lady bright, I have brought ye new delight. Heaven hath timely tried their youth, Their faith, their patience, and their truth, To triumph in victorious dance O'er sensual folly and intemperance. 970 The dances ended, the SPIRIT epiloguizes. Spir. To the ocean now I fly, Up in the broad fields of the sky. All amidst the gardens fair Of Hesperus, and his daughters three And west winds with musky wing Iris there with humid bow Waters the odorous banks, that blow Flowers of more mingled hue Than her purfled scarf can shew, Celestial Cupid, her famed son, advanced 980 990 1000 Holds his dear Psyche, sweet entranced And from her fair unspotted side But now my task is smoothly done: Quickly to the green earth's end, Where the bowed 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. Heaven itself would stoop to her. ΙΟΙΟ 1020 LYCIDAS. In this Monody the Author bewails a learned Friend, unfortunately drowned in his passage from Chester on the Irish Seas, 1637; and, by occasion, foretells the ruin of our corrupted Clergy, then in their height. YET Once more, O ye laurels, and once more, I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude, Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year. Compels me to disturb your season due; Begin, then, Sisters of the sacred well That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring; So may some gentle Muse With lucky words favour my destined urn, And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud! ΙΟ 20 For we were nursed upon the self-same hill, le 30 Toward heaven's descent had sloped his westering wheel. Tempered to the oaten flute, Rough Satyrs danced, and Fauns with cloven heel But, oh! the heavy change, now thou art gone, The willows, and the hazel copses green, Shall now no more be seen Fanning their joyous leaves to thy soft lays. As killing as the canker to the rose, Or taint-worm to the weanling herds that graze, Or frost to flowers, that their gay wardrobe wear, When first the white-thorn blows; Such, Lycidas, thy loss to shepherd's ear. 40 Where were ye, Nymphs, when the remorseless deep 50 Closed o'er the head of your loved Lycidas? For neither were ye playing on the steep Where your old bards, the famous Druids, lie, |