Listen where thou art sitting
Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave,
In twisted braids of lilies knitting
The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair:
Listen for dear honor's sake,
Goddess of the silver lake!
Listen, and save!
In name of great Oceanus:
By the earth-shaking Neptune's mace,
And Tethys' grave majestic pace;
By hoary Nereus' wrinkled look,
And the Carpathian wizard's hook;
By scaly Triton's winding shell,
And old sooth-saying Glaucus' spell ;
By Leucothea's lovely hands,
And her son that rules the strands;
By Thetis' tinsel-slipper'd feet,
And the songs of Syrens sweet;
By dead Parthenope's dear tomb,
And fair Ligea's golden comb,
Wherewith she sits on diamond rocks,
Sleeking her soft alluring locks ;
By all the nymphs that nightly dance
Upon thy streams with wily glance,
Rise! rise! and heave thy rosy head,
From thy coral-paven bed,
And bridle in thy headlong wave,
Till thou our summons answer'd have.
Listen, and save!
SABRINA rises, attended by Water-Nymphs, and
By the rushy-fringed bank,
Where grows the willow, and the osier dank,
My sliding chariot stays,
Thick set with agate, and the azurn sheen
Of turkis blue, and emerald green,
That in the channel strays;
Whilst from off the waters fleet
Thus I set my printless feet
O'er the cowslip's velvet head,
That bends not as I tread;
Gentle swain! at thy request,
I am here.
SPI. Goddess dear!
We implore thy powerful hand
To undo the charmed band
Of true virgin here distress'd,
Through the force, and through the wile,
Of unblest enchanter vile.
SAB. Shepherd! 'tis my office best
To help ensnared chastity.
Brightest Lady! look on me!
Thus I sprinkle on thy breast
Drops, that from
I have kept of precious cure,
Thrice upon thy finger's tip,
Thrice upon thy rubied lip :
Next this marble venom'd seat,
Smear'd 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 in Amphitrite's bower.
SABRINA descends, and the LADY rises out of her seat.
SPI. 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
Summer drought, 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 crown'd
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 of 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 wish'd 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.
SPI. 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.
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 being ended, the SPIRIT epiloguises.
SPI. 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 cedar'd alleys fling
Nard and Cassia's balmy smells.
Iris there with humid bow
Waters the odorous banks, that blow
Flowers of more mingled hew
Than her purfled scarf can show;
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 the' Assyrian queen:
But far above in spangled sheen
Celestial Cupid, her famed son, advanced,
Holds his dear Psyche sweet entranced,
After her wandering labors long,
Till free consent the gods among
|