ABRINA fair,

SONG

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 honour's sake, Goddess of the silver lake, Listen and save!

Listen, and appear to us,
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 soothsaying Glaucus' spell;
By Leucothea's lovely hands,
And her son that rules the strands;
By Thetis' tinsel-slipper'd feet,
And the songs of Sirens 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!

COMUS

ONE

NE thing yet remains to be done, which perhaps is of the greatest concern of all, and that is, that you, my countrymen, refute this adversary of yours yourselves, which I do not see any other means of your affecting, than by a constant endeavour to outdo all men's bad words by your own good deeds. When you laboured under more sorts of oppression than one, you betook yourselves to God for refuge, and he was graciously pleased to hear your most earnest prayer and desires.

But if it should fall out otherwise, (which God forbid,) if as you have valiant in war, you should grow debauched in peace, you that have had such visible demonstrations of the goodness of God to yourselves, and his wrath against your enemies; and that you should not have learned by so eminent, so remarkable an example before your eyes, to fear God, and work righteousness; for my part, I shall easily grant and confess (for I cannot deny it) whatever ill men may speak or think of you, to be And you very true. will find in a little time that God's displeasure against you will be greater than it has been against your adversaries, greater than his grace and favour has been to yourselves, which you have had larger experience of than any other nation under heaven.

A DEFENCE OF THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND

ON HIS BEING ARRIVED TO THE AGE OF

How

TWENTY-THREE

OW soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth, Stolen on his wing my three-and-twentieth year!

1

My hasting days fly on with full career,

But my late spring no bud or blossom shew'th.
Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth,
That I to manhood am arrived so near;

And inward ripeness doth much less appear,
That some more timely-happy spirits endu'th.
Yet be it less or more, or soon or slow,

It shall be still in strictest measure even
To that same lot, however mean or high,
Toward which Time leads me, and the will of
Heaven;

All is, if I have grace to use it so,

As ever in my great Task-Master's eye.

Ο

To prayer, repentance, and obedience due,

Though but endeavour'd with sincere intent, Mine ear shall not be slow, mine eye not shut. And I will place within them as a guide My umpire Conscience; whom if they will hear, Light after light well used they shall attain, And to the end persisting safe arrive. This my long sufferance and my day of grace They who neglect and scorn shall never taste; But hard be harden'd, blind be blinded more, That they may stumble on, and deeper fall; And none but such from mercy I exclude.

PARADISE LOST, BOOK III.

HE heavenly bands

THE

Down from a sky of jasper lighted now In Paradise, and on a hill made halt ;

A glorious apparition, had not doubt

And carnal fear that day dimm'd Adam's eye.
Not that more glorious, when the Angels met
Jacob in Mahanaim, where he saw

The field pavilion'd with his guardians bright;
Nor that which on the flaming mount appear'd
In Dothan, cover'd with a camp of fire,
Against the Syrian king, who to surprise
One man, assassin-like, had levied war,
War unproclaim'd. The princely Hierarch
In their bright stand there left his Powers to seize
Possession of the garden; he alone,

To find where Adam shelter'd took his way.

PARADISE LOST, Book XI.