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-slippered 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 answered have.

880

Listen and save!

SABRINA rises, attended by Water-nymphs, and sings.

By the rushy-fringed bank,

890

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!

Spirit. Goddess dear,
We implore thy powerful hand
To undo the charmed band

900

Of true virgin here distressed,
Through the force and through the wile
Of unblessed enchanter vile.

Sabrina. Shepherd, 'tis my office best
To help ensnared 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 marbled venomed seat,
Smeared 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.

910

920

SABRINA descends, and THE LADY rises out of her seat.

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

940

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 wished 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.

950

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.

Song.

Spirit. 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

960

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 ended, the SPIRIT epiloguizes.

970

Spirit. 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,

980

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-bosomed 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.

990

4

Iris there with humid bow

Waters the odorous banks, that blow
Flowers of more mingled hue
Than her purfled scarf can shew;
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 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 bowed 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,
Heaven itself would stoop to her.