Unless there be who think not God at all.

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What boots it at one gate to make defence,
And at another to let in the foe?

But who is this, what thing of sea or land, -
Female of sex it seems,

That so bedeck'd, ornate, and gay,

Comes this way sailing

Like a stately ship

Of Tarsus, bound for th' isles

Of Javan or Gadire,

With all her bravery on, and tackle trim,

Sails fill'd, and streamers waving,

Courted by all the winds that hold them play,

An amber scent of odorous perfume

Her harbinger?

Yet beauty, though injurious, hath strange power,
After offence returning, to regain

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Love once possess'd.

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He's gone, and who knows how he may report

Thy words by adding fuel to the flame?

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For evil news rides post, while good news baits.

Or knock the breast, no weakness, no contempt,
Dispraise, or blame, nothing but well and fair,
And what may quiet us in a death so noble.

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Above the smoke and stir of this dim spot

Which men call earth.

That golden key

Comus. Line 5.

That opes the palace of eternity.

The nodding horror of whose shady brows
Threats the forlorn and wandering passenger.
I will tell you now

What never yet was heard in tale or song,
From old or modern bard, in hall or bower.

Bacchus, that first from out the purple grape
Crush'd the sweet poison of misused wine.

These my sky-robes spun out of Iris' woof.

The star that bids the shepherd fold.

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Rose from the hindmost wheels of Phoebus' wain.

A thousand fantasies

Begin to throng into my memory,

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Of calling shapes, and beck'ning shadows dire,
And airy tongues that syllable men's names
On sands and shores and desert wildernesses.

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O welcome, pure-ey'd Faith, white-handed Hope,
Thou hovering angel, girt with golden wings!

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Was I deceiv'd, or did a sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining on the night?

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Can any mortal mixture of earth's mould
Breathe such divine enchanting ravishment?

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How sweetly did they float upon the wings
Of silence through the empty-vaulted night,
At every fall smoothing the raven down
Of darkness till it smil'd!

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Who, as they sung, would take the prison'd soul

That in the colours of the rainbow live,
And play i' th' plighted clouds.

It were a journey like the path to heaven,
To help you find them.

With thy long levell'd rule of streaming light.

Virtue could see to do what virtue would
By her own radiant light, though sun and moon
Were in the flat sea sunk. And Wisdom's self
Oft seeks to sweet retired solitude,

Where with her best nurse Contemplation
She plumes her feathers and lets grow her wings,
That in the various bustle of resort

Were all-to ruffled, and sometimes impair'd.
He that has light within his own clear breast
May sit i' th' centre and enjoy bright day;
But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts
Benighted walks under the midday sun.

Of miser's treasure.

The unsunn'd heaps

"T is chastity, my brother, chastity:
She that has that is clad in complete steel.

Some say no evil thing that walks by night,
In fog or fire, by lake or moorish fen,
Blue meagre hag, or stubborn unlaid ghost

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That breaks his magic chains at curfew time,
No goblin, or swart fairy of the mine,
Hath hurtful power o'er true virginity.
So dear to heav'n is saintly chastity,
That when a soul is found sincerely so,
A thousand liveried angels lackey her,
Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt,
And in clear dream and solemn vision
Tell her of things that no gross ear can hear,
Till oft converse with heav'nly habitants
Begin to cast a beam on th' outward shape.

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How charming is divine philosophy!

Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose,
But musical as is Apollo's lute,1

And a perpetual feast of nectar'd sweets

Where no crude surfeit reigns.

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And sweeten'd every musk-rose of the dale.

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Fill'd the air with barbarous dissonance.

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I was all ear,

And took in strains that might create a soul
Under the ribs of death.

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The leaf was darkish, and had prickles on it,
But in another country, as he said,

Bore a bright golden flow'r, but not in this soil;
Unknown, and like esteem'd, and the dull swain.
Treads on it daily with his clouted shoon.
Enter'd the very lime-twigs of his spells,
And yet came off.

1 See Shakespeare, page 56.

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And live like Nature's bastards, not her sons.

It is for homely features to keep home,
They had their name thence; coarse complexions
And cheeks of sorry grain will serve to ply
The sampler and to tease the huswife's wool.
What need a vermeil-tinctur'd lip for that,
Love-darting eyes, or tresses like the morn?
Swinish gluttony

Ne'er looks to heav'n amidst his gorgeous feast,
But with besotted base ingratitude

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Crams, and blasphemes his feeder.

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Enjoy your dear wit and gay rhetoric,

That hath so well been taught her dazzling fence.

The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair.

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But now my task is smoothly done,

I can fly, or I can run.

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Or if Virtue feeble were,

Heav'n itself would stoop to her.

I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude,
And with forc'd fingers rude

Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year.

He knew

Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme.

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