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 warranted782 than this, or less secure,

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

Eye me, blest providence, and square783 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 rush787 candle from the wicker hole788

Of some clay habitation visit us

With thy long levelled rule of streaming light,

And thou shalt be our star of Arcady789

Or Tyrian790 Cynosure.791

BROTHER 2. Or if our eyes

Be barred that happiness, might we but hear

The folded792 flocks penned in their wattled793 cotes,794

Or sound of pastoral reed795 with oaten796 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 close798 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 bank799 is her bolster,800 now,

Or ’gainst the rugged bark of some broad elm

Leans her unpillowed head, fraught801 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-exquisite802

To cast803 the fashion804 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 bosoms806 ever,

As that the single want of light and noise

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

Could stir the constant807 mood of her calm thoughts

And put them into misbecoming808 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 plumes811 her feathers and lets grow her wings

That in the various bustle of resort812

Were all too ruffled,813 and sometimes impaired.

He that has light within his own clear breast

May sit i’ th’ center814 and enjoy bright day,

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

Benighted815 walks under the midday sun—

Himself is his own dungeon.

BROTHER 2. ’Tis most true

That musing meditation most affects816

The pensive secrecy of desert cell,817

Far from the cheerful haunt818 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 attempt822 the person823

Of our unownèd824 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 poise826 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 moory836 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 arms841 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

With sudden adoration and blank 846 awe!

So dear to Heav’n is saintly chastity

That when a soul is found sincerely so

A thousand liveried 847 Angels lackey848 her,

Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt,

And in clear dream and solemn vision

Tell her of things that no gross ear can hear,

Till oft converse with Heav’nly habitants

Begin to cast a beam on th’ outward shape,

The unpolluted temple of the mind,

And turns it by degrees to the soul’s essence,

Till all be made immortal. But when lust

By unchaste looks, loose gestures, and foul talk,

But most by lewd and lavish 849 act of sin

Lets in 850 defilement to the inward parts,

The soul grows clotted by contagion,851

Embodies 852 and embrutes 853 till she quite lose

The divine property of her first being.

Such are those thick and gloomy shadows damp,

Oft seen in charnel854 vaults and sepulchers

Hovering, and sitting by a new-made grave,

As855 loath to leave the body that it loved

And linked itself, by carnal sensual’ty,

To a degenerate and degraded state.

BROTHER 2. How charming is divine856 philosophy!

Not harsh and crabbèd, as dull fools suppose,

But musical as is Apollo’s lute,

And a perpetual feast of nectared sweets,

Where no crude surfeit reigns.

BROTHER 1. List, list! I hear

Some faroff halloo break the silent air.

BROTHER 2. Methought so too. What should it be?

BROTHER 1. For certain,

Either someone, like us night-foundered here,

Or else some neighbor woodman—or, at worst,

Some roving robber calling to his fellows.

BROTHER 2. Heav’n keep my sister! Again: again, and

near!

Best draw857 and stand upon our guard.

BROTHER 1. I’ll halloo.

If he be friendly, he comes well. If not,

Defence is a good cause, and Heav’n be for us.

 

The attendant spirit [enters], habited like a shepherd.

 

That halloo I should know. What are you? Speak!

Come not too near: you fall on iron stakes,858 else!

SPIRIT. What voice is that, my young lord? Speak again.

BROTHER 2. O brother, ’tis my father’s shepherd—sure!

BROTHER 1. Thyrsis? Whose artful strains859 have oft

delayed

The huddling 860 brook, to hear his madrigal,

And sweetened every muskrose of the dale.

How cam’st thou here, good swain? Hath any ram

Slipped from his fold, or young kid lost his dam,861

Or straggling862 weather the pent flock forsook?863

How could’st thou find this dark, sequestered nook?

 

SPIRIT. O my loved master’s heir, and his next 864 joy,

I came not here on such a trivial toy

As a strayed ewe, or to pursue the stealth

Of pilfering wolf. Not all the fleecy wealth

That doth enrich these downs865 is worth a thought

To this my errand, and the care 866 it brought!

But O, my virgin lady: where is she?

How chance she is not in your company?

BROTHER 1. To tell thee sadly, shepherd, without blame

Or our neglect we lost her as we came.

SPIRIT. Aye me, unhappy! Then my fears are true.

BROTHER I. What fears, good Thyrsis? Prithee, briefly show.

 

SPIRIT.