ELD.BRO.Unmuffle,ye faint stars;and thou,fair moon,That wont'st to love the traveller's benison,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,Though a rush-candle from the wicker hole Of some clay habitation,visit us With thy long levelled rule of streaming light,And thou shalt be our star of Arcady,Or Tyrian Cynosure.
SEC.BRO.Or,if our eyes Be barred that happiness,might we but hear The folded flocks,penned in their wattled cotes,Or sound of pastoral reed with oaten stops,Or whistle from the lodge,or village cock Count the night-watches to his feathery dames,'T would be some solace yet,some little cheering,In this close dungeon of innumerous boughs.
But,oh,that hapless virgin,our lost sister!
Where may she wander now,whither betake her From the chill dew,amongst rude burs and thistles Perhaps some cold bank is her bolster now,Or 'gainst the rugged bark of some broad elm Leans her unpillowed head,fraught 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!
ELD.BRO.Peace,brother:be not over-exquisite To cast the fashion 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,Or so unprincipled in virtue's book,And the sweet peace that goodness bosoms ever,As that the single want of light and noise (Not being in danger,as I trust she is not)Could stir the constant mood of her calm thoughts,And put them into misbecoming plight.
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,She plumes her feathers,and lets grow her wings,That,in the various bustle of resort,Were all to-ruffled,and sometimes impaired.
He that has light within his own clear breast May sit i'the centre,and enjoy bright day:
But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts Benighted walks under the mid-day sun;Himself is his own dungeon.
SEC.BRO.'Tis most true That musing meditation most affects The pensive secrecy of desert cell,Far from the cheerful haunt of men and herds,And sits as safe as in a senate house For who would rob a hermit of his weeds,His few books,or his beads,or maple dish,Or do his grey 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.
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 the person Of our unowned sister.
ELD.BRO.I do not,brother,Infer as if I thought my sister's state Secure without all doubt or controversy;Yet,where an equal poise of hope and fear Does arbitrate the event,my nature is That I incline to hope rather than fear,And gladly banish squint suspicion.
My sister is not so defenceless left As you imagine;she has a hidden strength,Which you remember not.
SEC.BRO..What hidden strength,Unless the strength of Heaven,if you mean that?
ELD.BRO.I mean that too,but yet a hidden strength,Which,if Heaven 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 huge forests,and unharboured heaths,Infamous hills,and sandy perilous wilds;Where,through the sacred rays of chastity,No savage fierce,bandite,or mountaineer,Will dare to soil her virgin purity.
Yea,there where very desolation dwells,By grots and caverns shagged with horrid shades,She may pass on with unblenched 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 moorish fen,Blue meagre hag,or stubborn unlaid ghost,That breaks his magic chains at curfew time,No goblin or swart faery of the mine,Hath hurtful power o'er true virginity.
Do ye believe me yet,or shall I call Antiquity from the old schools of Greece To testify the arms of chastity?
Hence had the huntress Dian her dread bow Fair silver-shafted queen for ever chaste,Wherewith she tamed the brinded lioness And spotted mountain-pard,but set at nought The frivolous bolt of Cupid;gods and men Feared her stern frown,and she was queen o'the 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 brute violence With sudden adoration and blank awe?
So dear to Heaven is saintly chastity That,when a soul is found sincerely so,A thousand liveried angels lackey 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 heavenly habitants Begin to cast a beam on the 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 act of sin,Lets ill defilement to the inward parts,The soul grows clotted by contagion,Imbodies,and imbrutes,till she quite loose The divine property of her first being.