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She, guiltless damsel, flying the mad pursuit

Of her enraged stepdame Guendolen,

Commended her fair innocence to the flood,

They stayed her flight with his crossflowing course.

The water-nymphs that in the bottom played,

Held up their pearlèd wrists, and took her in,

Bearing her straight to aged Nereus' hall,

Who, piteous of her woes, reared her lank head,

And gave her to his daughters to imbathe

In nectared lavers strewed with asphodel,

And through the porch and inlet of each sense

Dropped in ambrosial oils, till she revived,

And underwent a quick immortal change,

Made Goddess of the river: still she

retains

Her maiden gentleness, and oft at eve Visits the herds along the twilight meadows,

Helping all urchin blasts, and illluck signs

That the shrewd meddling elf delights to make,

Which she with precious vialled liquors heals;

For which the shepherds at their festivals

Carol her goodness loud in rustic

lays,

And throw sweet garland wreaths into her stream

Of pansies, pinks, and gaudy daffodils,

And, as the old swain said, she can

unlock

The clasping charm, and thaw the numbing spell,

If she be right invoked in warbled song;

For maidenhood she loves, and will be swift

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Listen where thou art sitting Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave,

In twisted braids of lilies knitting The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair;

Listen for dear honor's sake,
Goddess of the silver lake,
Listen and save.

Listen and appear to us

In name of great Oceanus,
By the earth-shaking Neptune's
mace,

And Tethys' grave majestic pace,
By hoary Nereus' wrinkled look,
And the Carpathian wizard's hook,
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.

Listen and save.

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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 seat.

Spir.-Virgin, daughter of Lo-
crine,

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

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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.

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.

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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 en

tranced,

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

With life and mystical predominance;

Since likewise for the stricken heart of Love

This visible nature, and this common world,

Is all too narrow: yea, a deeper import

Lurks in the legend told my infant years

Than lies upon that truth we live to learn.

For fable is Love's world, his home, his birthplace:

Delightedly dwells he 'mong fays and talismans,

And spirits; and delightedly believes
Divinities, being himself divine.
The intelligible forms of ancient
poets,

The fair humanities of old religion, The power, the beauty, and the majesty,

That had their haunts in dale, or piny mountain,

Or forest by slow stream, or pebbly spring,

Or chasms and watery depths; all these have vanished;

They live no longer in the faith of

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As still was her look, and as still was her ee,

As the stillness that lay on the emerant lea,

Or the mist that sleeps on a waveless

sea.

For Kilmeny had been she knew not where,

And Kilmeny had seen what she could not declare;

Kilmeny had been where the cock never crew,

Where the rain never fell, and the wind never blew;

But it seemed as the harp of the sky had rung,

And the airs of heaven played round her tongue,

When she spake of the lovely forms she had seen,

And a land where sin had never been

A land of love and a land of light, Withouten sun, or moon, or night; And lovely beings round were rife, Who erst had travelled mortal life; They clasped her waist and her hands sae fair,

They kissed her cheek and they kemed her hair;

And round came many a blooming fere,

Saying, "Bonny Kilmeny, ye're welcome here!

Oh, bonny Kilmeny, free frae stain, If ever you seek the world again That world of sin, of sorrow, and fear

O, tell of the joys that are waiting here!

And tell of the signs you shall shortly see,

Of the times that are now, and the times that shall be."

But to sing of the sights Kilmeny saw,

So far surpassing Nature's law,
The singer's voice wad sink away,
And the string of his harp wad
cease to play.

But she saw till the sorrows of man were by,

And all was love and harmony;
Till the stars of heaven fell calmly

away,

Like the flakes of snaw on a winter's

day.

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Lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts.

I dreamt my lady came and found me dead;

(Strange dream that gives a dead man leave to think,)

And breathed such life with kisses in my lips,

That I revived and was an emperor. Ah, me! how sweet is love itself possessed

When but love's shadows are so rich in joy.

SHAKSPEARE: Romeo and Juliet.
Act v. Sc. 1.

SHIPS AT SEA.

I HAVE ships that went to sea
More than fifty years ago:
None have yet come home to me,
But keep sailing to and fro.
I have seen them, in my sleep,
Plunging through the shoreless deep,
With tattered sails and battered
hulls,

While around them screamed the gulls,

Flying low, flying low.

I have wondered why they staid From me, sailing round the world; And I've said, "I'm half afraid

That their sails will ne'er be
furled."

Great the treasures that they hold, –
Silks and plumes, and bars of gold;
While the spices which they bear
Fill with fragrance all the air,
As they sail, as they sail.

Every sailor in the port

Knows that I have ships at sea, Of the waves and winds the sport; And the sailors pity me. Oft they come and with me walk, Cheering me with hopeful talk, Till I put my fears aside, And contented watch the tide Rise and fall, rise and fall.

I have waited on the piers,

Gazing for them down the bay, Days and nights, for many years,

Till I turned heart-sick away. But the pilots, when they land, Stop and take me by the hand,

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