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Midnight shout and revelry,
Tipsy dance and jollity:

Braid your locks with rosy twine,
Dropping odours, dropping wine.

Rigour now is gone to bed;
And Advice with scrup'lous head,
Strict Age and sour Severity,

With their grave saws, in slumber lie.

We, that are of purer fire,

Imitate the starry choir,

Who, in their nightly watchful spheres,

Lead in swift round the months and years.

The sounds and seas, with all their finny drove,
Now to the moon in wav'ring morrice move,
And, on the tawny sands and shelves,
Trip the pert Fairies and the dapper Elves.

SONG. By a Woman.

By dimpled brook and fountain brim
The Wood-nymphs, deck'd with daisies trim,
Their merry wakes and pastimes keep ;

What has night to do with sleep?

Night has better sweets to prove;
Venus now wakes and wakens Love:
Come, let us our rites begin ;

'Tis only day-light that makes sin.

Comus. Hail, goddess of nocturnal sport,

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Dark-veil'd Cotytto! to whom the secret flamé 180

Of midnight torches burn. Mysterious dame!
That ne'er art call'd but when the dragon-womb

Of Stygian darkness spits her thickest gloom,
And makes one blot of all the air,

Stay thy cloudy ebon chair,

Wherein thou rid'st with Hecat', and befriend
Us thy vow'd priests, till utmost end

Of all thy dues be done, and none left out;
Ere the blabbing eastern scout,

The nice Morn, on th' Indian steep
From her cabin loop-hole peep,

And to the tell-tale Sun descry

Our conceal'd solemnity.

SONG. By COMUS and Woman.

From tyrant laws and customs free
We follow sweet variety;

By turns we drink, and dance, and sing,
Love forever on the wing.

Why should niggard rules control
Transports of the jovial soul?
No dull stinting hour we own ;
Pleasure counts our time alone.

Comus. Come, knit hands and beat the ground In a light fantastic round.

A Dance.

Break off, break off; I feel the diff'rent pace
Of some chaste footing near about this ground.

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Run to your shrouds within these brakes and trees;
Our numbers may affright. Some virgin sure
(For so I can distinguish by mine art)
Benighted in these woods. Now to my charms,
And to my wily trains. I shall ere long
Be well stock'd with as fair a herd as graz'd
About my mother Circe. Thus I hurl
My dazzling spells into the spungy air,
Of pow'r to cheat the eye with blear illusion,
And give it false presentments, lest the place
And my quaint habits breed astonishment,
And put the damsel to suspicious flight;
Which must not be, for that's against my course.
I, under fair pretence of friendly ends,
And well-plac'd words of glozing courtesy,
Baited with reasons not unplausible,

Wind me into the easy-hearted man,

And hug him into snares.

When once her eye

Hath met the virtue of this magic dust,

I shall appear some harmless villager
Whom thrift keeps up about his country gear.
But here she comes; I fairly step aside

And hearken if I may her bus'ness here.

Enter the Lady.

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Lady. This way the noise was, if mine ear be true, My best guide now: methought it was the sound 230 Of riot and ill-manag'd merriment;

"Such as the jocund flute or gamesome pipe

"Stirs up among the loose unletter'd hinds,

"When for their teeming flocks and granges full
"In wanton dance they praise the bounteous Pan,
"And thank the gods amiss." I should be loath
To meet the rudeness and swill'd insolence
Of such late rioters; yet oh! where else
Shall I inform my unacquainted feet

In the blind mazes of this tangled wood?

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Comus aside.] I'll ease her of that care, and be her

guide.

Lady. My brothers when they saw me wearied out "With this long way, resolving here to lodge "Under the spreading favour of these pines," Stepp'd, as they said, to the next thicket side To bring me berries, or such cooling fruit As the kind hospitable woods provide.

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"They left me then when the grey-hooded Even,
“Like a sad votarist in palmer's weeds,
"Rose from the hindmost wheels of Phoebus' wain ;"
But where they are, and why they come not back,
Is now the labour of my thoughts: 'tis likeliest
They had engag'd their wand'ring steps too far.
"This is the place, as well as I may guess,
"Whence, ev'n now, the tumult of loud mirth
"Was rife, and perfect in my list'ning ear,
"Yet nought but single darkness do I find.
"What might this be? A thousand fantasies
"Begin to throng into my memory,

"Of calling shapes and beck'ning shadows dire,
"And aëry tongues, that syllable mens' names
"On sands, and shores, and desert wildernesses.

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"These thoughts may startle well, but not astound, "The virtuous mind, that ever walks attended "By a strong siding champion, Conscience. "O! welcome pure-ey'd Faith, white-handed Hope, "Thou hov'ring angel, girt with golden wings, "And thou unblemish'd form of Chastity ! "I see you visibly, and now believe,

"That he, the supreme Good (t' whom all things ill "Are but as slavish officers of vengeance)

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"Would send a glist'ring guardian, if need were, "To keep my life and honour unassail'd. "Was I deceiv'd, or did a sable cloud "Turn forth her silver lining on the night? “I did not err; there does a sable cloud "Turn forth her silver lining on the night, "And casts a gleam over this tufted grove." I cannot halloo to my brothers, but Such noise as I can make to be heard farthest I'll venture, for my new enliven'd spirits Prompt me, and they perhaps are not far off.

SONG.

Sweet Echo, sweetest nymph! that liv'st unseen
Within thy aëry cell,

By slow Maander's margent green,
And in the violet-embroider'd vale,

Where the lovelorn nightingale

Nightly to thee her sad song

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mourneth well;

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Canst thou not tell me of a gentle pait

That likest thy Narcissus are?

C

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