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Why should'st thou, but for some fellonious end,

In thy dark lantern thus close the stars,

up

That Ŏture hung in Heav'n, and fill'd their lampsc

With everlasting oil, to give due light

To the misled and lonely traveller?

200th

This is the place, as well as I may guess,

Whence even now the tumult of loud mirth
Was rife, and perfect in my lift'ning ear,

Yet nought but fingle darkness do I find.
What might this be? A thousand fantafies

205

Begin to throng into my memory,

Of calling shapes, and beck'ning fhadows dire,
And aery tongues, that fyllable mens names
On fands, and fhores, and defert wilderneffes.
These thoughts may startle well, but not aftound 210

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the virtuous mind, that ever walks attended ya ftrong fiding champion, conscience.— welcome pure-ey'd Faith, white-handed Rope, hou hovering Angel girt with golden wings nd thou unblemish'd form of Chastity; fee ye vifibly, and now believe

215

220

That he, the Supreme Good, t' whom all things ill
Are but as flavish officers of vengeance,
Would send a glift'ring guardian if need were
o keep my life and honor unaffail'd.
Was I deceiv'd, or did a fable cloud
Furn forth her filver lining on the night?
I did not err, there does a fable cloud
Turn forth her filver lining on the night,

And cafts a gleam over this tufted

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grove.

225

I

219. Would fend a gliff'ring guardian] In the Manufcript it was. first Cherub.

221. Was I deceiv'd, or did a fable

cloud &c] This presents us with one of the nobleft images in nature, and as beautifully expreffed. The author feems to have been fenfible of its charms, and has therefore contrived to repeat it; and fo artfully, that the repetition adds a new grace to it.

Warburton.

229.-are

I cannot hallow to my Brothers, but

Such noife as I can make to be heard farthest

I'll venture, for my new inliven'd fpirits
Prompt me; and they perhaps are not far off.

Sweet

SONG.

Weet Echo, sweetest nymph, that liv'st unseen
Within thy aery shell,

By flow Meander's margent green,

And in the violet-embroider'd vale,

231

Where the love-lorn nightingale

Nightly to thee her fad fong mourneth well,
Canft thou not tell me of a gentle pair

235

That likeft thy Narciffus are?

229.

Manuscript it is

are not far off] In the hicle, whereby to receive and return its various impulfes. Teftudo or fhell being a name alfo for a mufical inftrument, a lyre, which could give no found but when it was ftruck upon, the word beautifully alludes to the nature of this vocal nymph;

are not far bence. 231. Within thy aery fhell,] The horizon. Warburton. The edition of this Mask with alterations for the stage hath cell inftead of hell: but the common reading is much the best.

The

nymph is feated in a convex vehicle of air, which on account of its form is called a teftudo or shell. And as all found is communicated by the air, the poet hath very naturally affign'd her this aery ve

quæ nec reticere loquenti, Nec prior ipfa loqui poterat refonabilis Echo.

Ovid. Met. III. 357. Calton. I cannot but think shell the better word for the reafons affign'd:

but

O if thou have

Hid them in fome flow'ry cave,

Tell me but where,

Sweet queen of parly, daughter of the sphere,

So may'ft thou be tranflated to the skies,

240

And give refounding grace to all Heav'n's harmonies.

COMUS.

Can
any mortal mixture of earth's mold
Breathe fuch divine inchanting ravishment?
Sure fomething holy lodges in that breast,
And with these raptures moves the vocal air
To teftify his hidden refidence:

How fweetly did they flote upon the wings

but yet it may be faid to juftify Dr. Dalton's alteration, that Milton hath alfo written cell in the margin of his Manuscript.

241.daughter of the sphere,] Milton has given her a much nobler and more poetical original than any of the ancient mythologifts. He fuppofes her to owe her firft existence to the reverberation of the mufic of the fpheres; in confequence of which he had juft before called the horizon her aery fhell. And from the Gods (like other celeftial beings of the

245

Of

claffical order) fhe came down to men. Warburton.

244. Can any mortal mixture &c.] Before these words there is in the Manufcript, Comus looks in and peaks.

249. How faweetly did they flote upon the wings

Of filence,] This is extremely poetical, and infinuates this fublime idea and imagery, that even filence herself was content to convey her mortal enemy, found, on her wings, fo greatly was fhe charmed with its harmony. Warburton. 251. Ac

Of filence, through the empty-vaulted night, 258 At every fall smoothing the raven down

Of darkness till it fmil'd! I have oft heard

My mother Circe with the Sirens three,
Amidst the flow'ry-kirtled Naiades

Culling their potent herbs, and baleful drugs, 253
Who as they fung, would take the prison'd foul,
And lap it in Elyfium; Scylla wept,

And chid her barking waves into attention,

And fell Charybdis murmur'd soft applause:

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Yet they in pleasing flumber lull'd the fenfe, 260

And in sweet madness robb'd it of itself;

But such a facred, and home-felt delight,
Such fober certainty of waking blifs

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Manufcript that this and the verfe following were added after the reft in the margin. A kirtle is a woman's gown; a word used by Chaucer, and Spenfer, and Shakespear in 2 Hen. IV. A&t 2. Sc. 11. Falstaff fays to Dol, What will you have a kirtle of? and in one of his Sonnets,

A cap of flowers, and a kirtle Embroider'd all with leaves of myrtle.

256. would take the prifon'd Soul,

And

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