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Married to immortal verse,
Such as the meeting Soul may pierce
In notes, with many a winding bout,
Of linked sweetness long drawn out,
With wanton heed, and giddy cunning,
The melting voice through mazes running,
Untwisting all the chains that ty

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The brood of folly without father bred, How little you bested,

Or fill'd the fixed mind with all your toys? Dwell in fome idle brain,

And fancies fond with gaudy shapes possess, As thick and numberless

As the gay motes that people the fun-beams, Or likeft hovering dreams

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The

The fickle pensioners of Morpheus train. But hail thou Goddefs, fage and holy,

Hail divinest Melancholy,

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Whose faintly visage is too bright

To hit the sense of human sight,

And therefore to our weaker view

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O'er-laid with black, ftaid wisdom's hue;

Prince Memnon's sister might beseem,

Black, but fuch as in efteem

Or that starr'd Ethiop queen that strove

To set her beauties praise above

The Sea-Nymphs, and their pow'rs offended:
Yet thou art higher far defcended,

Thee bright-har'd Vesta long of yore

To folitary Saturn bore;

His daughter she (in Saturn's reign,
Such mixture was not held a stain.)
Oft in glimmering bow'rs and glades
He met her, and in secret shades
Of woody Ida's inmost grove,
While yet there was no fear of Jove.
Come penfive Nun, devout and pure,
Sober, stedfast, and demure,
All in a robe of darkest grain,
Flowing with majestic train,
And fable stole of Cyprus lawn,

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Over thy decent shoulders drawn.

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Come,

Come, but keep thy wonted state,

With even step, and musing gate,

And looks commercing with the skies,
Thy rapt foul fitting in thine eyes:
There held in holy paffion ftill,
Forget thyself to marble, till

With a fad leaden downward caft

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Thou fix them on the earth as faft:

And join with thee calm Peace and Quiet,

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Spare Fast, that oft with Gods doth diet,
And hears the Mufes in a ring

Ay round about Jove's altar fing:
And add to thefe retired Leifure,
That in trim gardens takes his pleasure;
But first, and chiefeft, with thee bring,

Him that yon foars on golden wing,
Guiding the fiery-wheeled throne,
The Cherub Contemplation;
And the mute Silence hift along,
'Less Philomel will deign a fong,

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And miffing thee, I walk unseen
On the dry smooth-fhaven green,
To behold the wand'ring moon,
Riding near her highest noon,

Like one that had been led aftray

Through the Heav'n's wide pathless way,
And oft, as if her head fhe bow'd,
Stooping through a fleecy cloud.
Oft on a plat of rising ground,
I heard the far-off Curfeu found,
Over fome wide-water'd fhore,
Swinging flow with fullen roar;
Or if the air will not permit,

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Or let my lamp at midnight hour,

Be seen in some high lonely tow'r,
Where I may oft out-watch the Bear,
With thrice great Hermes, or unsphere

The spirit of Plato to unfold

What worlds, or what vaft regions hold

The immortal mind that hath forfook

Her mansion in this fleshly nook:

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And

And of those Demons that are found

In fire, air, flood, or under ground,
Whose power hath a true consent
With planet, or with element.
Sometime let gorgeous tragedy
In scepter'd pall come fweeping by,
Presenting Thebes, or Pelops line,
Or the tale of Troy divine,
Or what (though rare) of later age
Ennobled hath the buskin'd stage.
But, O fad Virgin, that thy power
Might raise Mufæus from his bower,
Or bid the foul of Orpheus fing

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Such notes, as warbled to the string,

Drew iron tears down Pluto's cheek,

And made Hell grant what love did seek.
Or call up him that left half told

The story of Cambuscan bold,

Of Camball, and of Algarfife,

And who had Canace to wife,

'That own'd the virtuous ring and glass,
And of the wondrous horse of brass,
On which the Tartar king did ride;

And if ought else great bards befide

In fage and folemn tunes have fung,

Of turneys and of trophies hung,

Of forests, and inchantments drear,

Where more is meant than meets the ear.

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