Not any boast of skill, but extreme shift
How to regain my severed company,

Compelled me to awake the courteous echo
To give me answer from her mossy couch.

Comus.-What chance, good lady, hath bereft you thus?

Lady.-Dim darkness, and this leafy labyrinth.

Comus. Could that divide you from near ushering guides?

Lady. They left me weary on a grassy turf.
Comus. By falsehood or discourtesy, or why?

Lady. To seek i' th' valley some cool, friendly spring.
Comus. And left your fair side all unguarded, lady?
Lady. They were but twain, and promised quick re-

turn.

Comus. Perhaps forestalling night prevented them. Lady. How easy my misfortune is to hit.

Comus.-Imports their loss besides the present's need? Lady. No less than if I should my brothers lose. Comus.-Were they of manly prime or youthful bloom? Lady. As smooth as Hebe's their unrazored lips.

Comus tells the lady that he has not long before seen such a pair of youths, and can guide her to the place. If they are not there or thereabouts, he will take her to "a poor but loyal cottage," where she can rest in safety until morning, when the search can be resumed.

The scene now shifts to another part of the forest; the two brothers are in search of their sister. To them enters the Attendant Spirit, who has assumed the form of Thyrsis, a trusted servitor of their father. He tells them that he has by chance learned that their sister has been entrapped by the vile wizard Comus; but he has come into possession of "a small, unsightly root," which is a sure protection against all enchantments; and gives them instructions what to do.

The scene again changes into an enchanted palace, whither the lady has been beguiled by Comus, where a magnificent banquet is set out. The lady has unwittingly seated herself in an enchanted chair, from which she cannot rise. Comus plies her with seductive blandishments, which she indignantly repels. The brothers rush in, sword in hand, and put Comus and his crew to flight. But they have forgotten one part of their instruction: the spell which held the lady fast bound in the chair is unbroken. The spirit, still wearing the guise of Thyrsis, now enters, and bethinks himself that there is yet one resource. This is to invoke the aid of Sabrina, the chaste Water Nymph of the Severn. She is invoked in song, and answers the summons. The last two scenes of the masque are mainly musical; and for them we may be sure that "tuneful Harry" composed his best music, and sang his part in his best manner.

THE SPIRIT OF SABRINA.

Spirit.

Goddess dear,

We implore thy powerful hand

To undo the charmed band

Of true virgin here distrest,

Through the force and through the wile
Of unblest 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 ruby lip.
Next this marble venomed seat,

Smeared with gums of glutinous heat,
I touch with chaste palms, moist and cold.
Now the spell has lost his hold,

And I must haste, ere morning's hour,
To wait in Amphitrite's bower.

The Nymph vanishes, amidst a burst of music. Thyrsis conducts the lady and her brothers to their father's castle, where great rejoicings are going on. No one has dreamed of the perils through which the lady and her brothers have passed, for the whole action of the drama has taken place within the few hours after late nightfall and before early dawn. The Spirit now puts off the human shape of Thyrsis, and sings the Epilogue, which closes the masque.

EPILOGUE, BY THE ATTENDANT 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

All amidst the gardens fair
Of Hesperus, and his daughters three,
That sing about the golden tree.

Along the crispèd 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 the west winds, with musky wing,
About the cedarn alleys fling

Nard and cassia's balmy smells;
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 celestial 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 labors 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 sweetly 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 corner of the moon.
Mortals, that would follow me,
Love Virtue-she alone is free;
She can teach you how to climb
Higher than the sphery chime;
Or, if Virtue feeble were,

Heaven itself would stoop to her.

Comus was written in Milton's twenty-sixth year. Lycidas, written three years later, is an elegy upon Edward King, a promising young man, who had been a college friend of Milton, and was drowned while voyaging across the Irish Sea. Several of his college friends united to get up a little memorial volume to him, to which Milton contributed the monody of Lycidas. Milton idealizes himself and his studious friend as shepherd youths, tending their flocks, and playing

upon oaten flutes to dancing Satyrs and goatheeled Fauns, and even the stolid college tutor is transformed into the old shepherd Damotas. "In this monody," says Milton, "the author bewails a learned friend, unfortunately drowned in 1637; and by occasion foretells the ruin of our corrupted clergy, then in their height."

A LAMENT FOR LYCIDAS.

Yet once more, O ye laurels, and once more
Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere,

I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude;
And with forced fingers rude,

Scatter your leaves before the mellowing year.
Bitter constraint, and sad occasion 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 sing for Lycidas! He knew
Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme.
He must not float upon his watery bier
Unwept, and welter to the parching wind,
Without the meed of some melodious tear.

For we were nursed upon the self-same hill,
Fed the same flock by fountain, shade, and rill ;
Together both ere the high lawns appeared
Under the opening eyelids of the morn,
We drove afield, and both together heard
What time the gray-fly winds her sultry horn,
Battening our flocks with the fresh dews of night,
Oft till the star, that rose at evening bright,

Toward heaven's descent had sloped his westering wheel.
Meanwhile the rural ditties were not mute,

Tempered to oaten flute;

Rough Satyrs danced, and Fauns with cloven heel

From the glad sound would not be absent long,

And old Damotas loved to hear our song.

But oh, the heavy change, now thou art gone,
And never must return!

-Lycidas.