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 wisard's hook,2
By scaly Triton's winding shell,
And old soothsaying Glaucus' spell,
By Leucothea's 5 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,8
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.
1 The wife of Oceanus.
2 Proteus, who had a cave in Carpathus, an island of the Mediterranean. He was a wizard, a prophet, and Neptune's shepherd, and therefore held a crook.
3 Neptune's trumpeter.
4 Glaucus, an excellent diver, was made a sea-god. He was a prophet, and is said to have taught Apollo to prophesy.
5 Leucothea, i.e., the white goddess.
She was Ino, who, flying from her mad husband, Athamas, cast herself and her child into the sea. Neptune, at the entreaty of Venus, changed both into seadeities, and gave her the new name of Leucothea.
6 Palæmon, the infant in her arms when she sprang into the sea.
7 A sea-goddess, called by Homer silver-footed.
8 Parthenope and Ligea were two of the Syrens.
Sabrina rises, attended by water-nymphs, and sings.
By the rushy-fringed bank,
Where grows the willow and the osier dank,
My sliding chariot stays,
Thick set with agate, and the azure 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.
SP. Goddess dear,
We implore thy pow'rful hand
To undo the charmed band
Of true virgin here distrest,
Through the force, and through the wile
Of unblest enchanter vile.
SABR. Shepherd, 'tis my office best
To help insnared chastity:
Brightest Lady, look on me;
Thus I sprinkle on thy breast
Drops that from my fountain pure
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.
SP. Virgin, daughter of Locrine
Sprung of old Anchises' line,1
1 Locrine was the son of Brutus, the great-grandson of Eneas.
May thý brimmed waves for this
Their full tribute never miss
From a thousand petty rills,
That tumble down the snowy hills:
Summer drouth, or singèd 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 tow'r and terrace round,
And here and there thy banks upon
With groves of myrrh and cinnamon.
Come, Lady, while Heav'n lends us grace,
Let us fly this cursed place,
Lest the sorcerer us entice
With some other new device.
Not a waste, or 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.
SP. Back, Shepherds, back, enough your play,
Till next sunshine 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;
Heav'n 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 ended, the Spirit epiloguises.
SP. 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 :1
Along the crispèd 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 cedarn alleys fling
Nard and cassia's balmy smells.
The daughters of Hesperus, the brother of Atlas, had gardens, or orchards, which produced apples of gold.
Iris there with humid bow
Waters the odorous banks, that blow
Flowers of more mingled hue
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 th' Assyrian queen;1
But far above in spangled sheen
Celestial Cupid her famed son advanced,
Holds his dear Psyche sweet intranced,
After her wand'ring labours long,
Till free consent the Gods among
Make her his eternal bride,
And from her fair unspotted side
Two blissful twins are to be born,
Youth and Joy; so Jove hath sworn.
But now my task is smoothly done,
I can fly, or I can run
Quickly to the green earth's end,
Where the bow'd 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,
She can teach ye how to climb
Higher than the sphery chime:
Or, if Virtue feeble were,
Heav'n itself would stoop to her.
2 Venus; so called because she was worshipped by the Assyrians. See OVID, Met. IX, 636.
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