I fhall be your faithful guide
Through this gloomy covert wide,
And not many furlongs thence
Is your Father's refidence,
Where this night are met in state
Many a friend to gratulate
His wish'd prefence, and befide
All the fwains that near abide,
With jigs and rural dance refort;

We shall catch them at their fport,
And our fudden coming there

Will double all their mirth and chear;
Come let us hafte, the ftars grow high,

But night fits monarch yet in the mid sky.

945

950

955

The Scene changes, presenting Ludlow town and the Prefident's caftle; then come in country dancers, after them the attendent Spirit, with the two Brothers and the Lady.

SPI. Back, Shepherds, back, enough your play,

Till next fun-fhine holiday;

Here be without duck or nod

Other trippings to be trod

Of lighter toes, and fuch court guise

As Mercury did first devise

With the mincing Dryades

On the lawns, and on the leas.

960

965

This fecond Song prefents them to their Father and Mother.

Noble Lord, and Lady bright,
I have brought you new delight,
Here behold fo goodly grown
Three fair branches of your own;

Heav'n hath timely try'd their youth,

970

Their faith, their patience, and their truth,

And fent them here through hard affay's

With a crown of deathlefs praise,

To triumph in victorious dance

O'er fenfual folly, and intemperance.

975

The Graces, and the rofy-bofom'd Hours,

Thither all their bounties bring;

That

1

Than her purfled scarf can shew,
And drenches with Elyfian 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 flumber foft, and on the ground
Sadly fits th' Affyrian queen;
But far above in spangled sheen

Celestial Cupid her fam'd fon advanc'd,
Holds his dear Pfyche fweet intranc'd,
After her wandering labors long,
Till free confent the Gods among
Make her his eternal bride,
And from her fair unfpotted fide
Two blissful twins are to be born,
Youth and Joy; fo Jove hath fworn.
But now my task is smoothly done,

I can fly, or I can run

Quickly to the green earth's end,

995

ICOO

1005

1010

Where the bow'd welkin flow doth bend,

1015

And from thence can foar as foon

To the corners of the moon.

Mortals

e

XVII.

DA

LYCI

S.

In this monody the author bewails a learned friend*, unfortunately drown'd in his paffage from Chefter on the Irish feas, 1637, and by occafion foretels the ruin of our corrupted clergy, then in their highth.

Y

ET once more, O ye Laurels, and once more
Ye Myrtles brown, with Ivy never fere,
I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude,
And with forc'd fingers rude

Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year.
Bitter constraint, and fad occafion dear,
Compels me to disturb your season due :
For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime,
Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer:
Who would not fing for Lycidas? he knew
Himself to fing, and build the lofty rhyme,
He must not flote upon his watry bier
Unwept, and welter to the parching wind,
Without the meed of fome melodious tear.

Begin then, Sifters of the facred well,

That from beneath the feat of Jove doth spring,
Begin, and fomewhat loudly fweep the ftring.

5

10

15

* Mr. Edward King, fon of Sir John King Secretary for Ireland, a fellow-collegian and intimate friend of our author.

Hence