The Annotated Milton: Complete English Poems (16 page)

To touch the prosperous growth of this tall Wood!

LADY. Nay, gentle shepherd, ill is lost that praise

That is addressed to unattending ears.

Not any boast of skill, but extreme shift
⁷⁶¹

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
⁷⁶²

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 purposed quick return.

COMUS. Perhaps forestalling night prevented them?

LADY. How easy my misfortune is to hit!
⁷⁶³

COMUS. Imports
⁷⁶⁴
their loss, beside the present 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,
⁷⁶⁵
their unrazored lips.

COMUS. Two such I saw, what time the labored ox

In his loose traces
⁷⁶⁶
from the furrow came,

And the swinked
⁷⁶⁷
hedger
⁷⁶⁸
at his supper sat.

I saw ’em under a green mantling
⁷⁶⁹
vine

That crawls along the side of yon small hill,

Plucking ripe clusters from the tender shoots.

Their port
⁷⁷⁰
was more than human, as they stood:

I took it for a fairy vision

Of some gay
⁷⁷¹
creatures of the element

That in the colors of the rainbow live

And play i’ th’ pleated clouds. I was awe-struck,

And as I passed I worshipped! If those you seek,

It were a journey like the path to Heav’n

To help you find them.

LADY. Gentle villager,

What readiest way would bring me to that place?

COMUS. Due west it rises, from this shrubby point.

LADY. To find out that, good shepherd, I suppose,

In such a scant allowance of star-light,

Would overtask the best land-pilot’s art,

Without the sure guess of well-practiced feet.

COMUS. I know each lane, and every alley green,

Dingle
⁷⁷²
or bushy dell
⁷⁷³
of this wide wood,

And every bosky
⁷⁷⁴
bourn,
⁷⁷⁵
from side to side

My daily walks and ancient neighborhood,

And if your stray attendance
⁷⁷⁶
be yet lodged
⁷⁷⁷

Or shroud
⁷⁷⁸
within these limits, I shall know

Ere morrow wake or the low-roosted lark

From her thatched pallet
⁷⁷⁹
rouse. If otherwise,

I can conduct you, lady, to a low
⁷⁸⁰

But loyal
⁷⁸¹
cottage, where you may be safe

Till further quest.

LADY. Shepherd, I take thy word

And trust thy honest offered courtesy,

Which oft is sooner found in lowly sheds

With smoky rafters than in tap’stry halls

And courts of princes, where it first was named

And yet is most pretended. In a place

Less warranted
⁷⁸²
than this, or less secure,

I cannot be, that I should fear to change it.

Eye me, blest providence, and square
⁷⁸³
my trial

To my proportioned strength!

Shepherd, lead on.—

The two brothers.

BROTHER 1. Unmuffle, ye faint stars, and thou fair moon

That wont’st
⁷⁸⁴
to love the traveller’s benison,
⁷⁸⁵

Stoop thy pale visage through an amber cloud

And disinherit chaos, that reigns here

In double night of darkness and of shades!

Or if your influence be quite dammed up

With black, usurping mists, some gentle taper
⁷⁸⁶

Through a rush
⁷⁸⁷
candle from the wicker hole
⁷⁸⁸

Of some clay habitation visit us

With thy long levelled rule of streaming light,

And thou shalt be our star of Arcady
⁷⁸⁹

Or Tyrian
⁷⁹⁰
Cynosure.
⁷⁹¹

BROTHER 2. Or if our eyes

Be barred that happiness, might we but hear

The folded
⁷⁹²
flocks penned in their wattled
⁷⁹³
cotes,
⁷⁹⁴

Or sound of pastoral reed
⁷⁹⁵
with oaten
⁷⁹⁶
stops,
⁷⁹⁷

Or whistle from the lodge, or village cock

Count the night watches to his feathery dames,

It would be some solace yet, some little cheering

In this close
⁷⁹⁸
dungeon of innumerous boughs.

But O, that hapless virgin, our lost sister!

Where may she wander now? Whither betake her

From the chill dew, amongst rude burrs and thistles?

Perhaps some cold bank
⁷⁹⁹
is her bolster,
⁸⁰⁰
now,

Or ’gainst the rugged bark of some broad elm

Leans her unpillowed head, fraught
⁸⁰¹
with sad fears.

What if in wild amazement and affright,

Or while we speak, within the direful grasp

Of savage hunger, or of savage heat?

BROTHER 1. Peace, brother: be not over-exquisite
⁸⁰²

To cast
⁸⁰³
the fashion
⁸⁰⁴
of uncertain evils,

For grant they be so, while they rest unknown

What need a man forestall his date of grief

And run to meet what he would most avoid?

Or if they be but false alarms of fear,

How bitter is such self-delusion?

I do not think my sister so to seek,
⁸⁰⁵

Or so unprincipled in virtue’s book

And the sweet peace that goodness bosoms
⁸⁰⁶
ever,

As that the single want of light and noise

(Not being in danger, as I trust she is not)

Could stir the constant
⁸⁰⁷
mood of her calm thoughts

And put them into misbecoming
⁸⁰⁸
plight.
⁸⁰⁹

Virtue could see to do what virtue would,

By her own radiant light, though sun and moon

Were in the flat sea sunk. And wisdom’s self

Oft seeks to sweet, retired solitude,

Where with her best nurse, contemplation,
⁸¹⁰

She plumes
⁸¹¹
her feathers and lets grow her wings

That in the various bustle of resort
⁸¹²

Were all too ruffled,
⁸¹³
and sometimes impaired.

He that has light within his own clear breast

May sit i’ th’ center
⁸¹⁴
and enjoy bright day,

But he that hides a dark soul, and foul thoughts,

Benighted
⁸¹⁵
walks under the midday sun—

Himself is his own dungeon.

BROTHER 2. ’Tis most true

That musing meditation most affects
⁸¹⁶

The pensive secrecy of desert cell,
⁸¹⁷

Far from the cheerful haunt
⁸¹⁸
of men and herds,

And sits as safe as in a Senate house—

For who would rob a hermit of his weeds,
⁸¹⁹
390

His few books, or his beads,
⁸²⁰
or maple dish,

Or do his gray hairs any violence?

But beauty, like the fair Hesperian tree

Laden with blooming gold, had need the guard

Of dragon watch with unenchanted eye,

To save her blossoms and defend her fruit

From the rash hand of bold incontinence.
⁸²¹

You may as well spread out the unsunned heaps

Of miser’s treasure by an outlaw’s den

And tell me it is safe, as bid me hope

Danger will wink on opportunity

And let a single helpless maiden pass

Uninjured, in this wild surrounding waste.

Of night or loneliness, it recks me not:

I fear the dread events that dog them both,

Lest some ill greeting touch attempt
⁸²²
the person
⁸²³

Of our unownèd
⁸²⁴
sister.

BROTHER 1. I do not, brother,

Infer,
⁸²⁵
as if I thought my sister’s state

Secure without all doubt or controversy.

Yet where an equal poise
⁸²⁶
of hope and fear

Does arbitrate
⁸²⁷
th’ event, my nature is

That I incline to hope rather than fear

And banish, gladly, squint
⁸²⁸
suspicion.

My sister is not so defenceless left

As you imagine. She has a hidden strength

Which you remember not.

BROTHER 2. What hidden strength,

Unless the strength of Heav’n, if you mean that?

BROTHER 1. I mean that too, but yet a hidden strength

Which, if Heav’n gave it, may be termed her own.

’Tis chastity, my brother, chastity.

She that has that is clad in complete steel,

And like a quivered nymph with arrows keen

May trace
⁸²⁹
huge forests and unharbored
⁸³⁰
heaths,
⁸³¹

Infamous hills and sandy perilous wilds,

Where through the sacred rays of chastity

No savage fierce, bandit or mountaineer,

Will dare to soil her virgin purity.

Yea, there where very desolation dwells,

By grots
⁸³²
and caverns shagged
⁸³³
with horrid
⁸³⁴
shades,

She may pass on with unblenched
⁸³⁵
majesty—

Be it not done in pride or in presumption.

Some say no evil thing that walks by night

In fog, or fire, by lake or moory
⁸³⁶
fen,
⁸³⁷

Blue meager hag or stubborn unlaid
⁸³⁸
ghost

That breaks his chains at curfew time,

No goblin or swart
⁸³⁹
fairy of the mine,
⁸⁴⁰

Has hurtful power o’er true virginity.

Do you believe me yet, or shall I call

Antiquity from the old schools of Greece

To testify the arms
⁸⁴¹
of chastity?

Hence had the huntress Dian her dread bow,

Fair silver-shafted queen, forever chaste,

Wherewith she tamed the brinded
⁸⁴²
lioness

And spotted mountain pard,
⁸⁴³
but set at naught

The frivolous bolt
⁸⁴⁴
of Cupid. Gods and men

Feared her stern frown, and she was queen o’ th’ woods.

What was that snaky-headed Gorgon shield

That wise Minerva wore, unconquered virgin,

Wherewith she freezed her foes to congealed stone,

But rigid looks of chaste austerity,

And noble grace that dashed
⁸⁴⁵
brute violence