With such a full and unwithdrawing hand,

Covering the earth with odors, fruits, and flocks, Thronging the seas with spawn innumerable,

But all to please, and sate the curious taste?

And set to work millions of spinning worms,

That in their green shops weave the smooth-haired silk

To deck her sons; and that no corner might

Be vacant of her plenty, in her own loins

She hutched the all worshipped ore, and precious gems,

To store her children with: if all the world

Should in a pet of temperance feed on pulse,

Drink the clear stream, and nothing wear but frieze,

The All-giver would be unthanked, would be unpraised,

Not half his riches known, and yet despised;

And we should serve him as a grudging master, As a penurious niggard of his wealth;

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

Who would be quite surcharged with her own weight,

And strangled with her waste fertility;

The earth cumbered, and the winged air darked with plumes, The herds would over-multitude their lords,

The sea o'erfraught would swell, and the unsought diamonds Would so emblaze the forehead of the deep, And so bestud with stars, that they below

Would grow inured to light, and come at last

To gaze upon the sun with shameless brows.

List, Lady, be not coy, and be not cozened

With that same vaunted name Virginity.. Beauty is Nature's coin, must not be hoarded,

But must be current, and the good thereof

Consists in mutual and partaken bliss, Unsavory in the enjoyment of itself;

If you let slip time, like a neglected

rose

It withers on the stalk with languished head.

Beauty is Nature's brag, and must be shown

In courts, at feasts, and high solemnities,

Where most may wonder at the workmanship;

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 housewife's wool.

What need a vermeil-tinctured lip for that,

Love-darting eyes, or tresses like the morn?

There was another meaning in these gifts,

Think what, and be advised, you are but young yet.

Lady. I had not thought to have unlockt my lips

In this unhallowed air, but that this juggler

Would think to charm my judgment, as mine eyes,

Obtruding false rules pranked in reason's garb.

I hate when Vice can bolt her arguments,

And Virtue has no tongue to check her pride. Impostor, do not charge most innocent Nature,

As if she would her children should be riotous

With her abundance; she, good cateress,

Means her provision only to the good, That live according to her sober laws,

And holy dictate of spare temper

ance:

If every just man, that now pines with want,

O'er the cowslip's velvet head, That bends not as I tread; Gentle Swain, at thy request I am here.

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

Of true virgin here distressed, Through the force, and through the wile

Of unblest enchanter vile.
Sabr.-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 marble 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.

SABRINA descends, and the LADY rises out of her seut.

Spir.-Virgin, daughter of Locrine,

Sprung of old Anchises' line,
May thy brimmèd waves for this
Their full tribute never miss
From a thousand petty rills,
That tumble down the snowy hills:
Summer drouth, or singèd air
Never scorch thy tresses fair,
Nor wet October's torrent flood
Thy molten crystal fill with mud;
May thy billows roll ashore
The beryl, and the golden ore;
May thy lofty head be crowned
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
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,

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 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.
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 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, ad-
vanced,

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 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. MILTON.

MYTHOLOGY.

O NEVER rudely will I blame his faith In the might of stars and angels! 'Tis not merely The human being's Pride that peoples space