Be barr'd that happiness, might we but hear
The folded flocks penn'd in their watled cotes,
Or found of past'ral reed with oaten ftops,
Or whistle from the lodge, or village cock
Count the night watches to his feathery dames,
'Twould be fome folace yet, fome little chearing
In this close 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 burs and thistles?
Perhaps fome cold bank is her bolster now,
Or, 'gainst the rugged bark of fome broad elm
Leans her unpillow'd head fraught with fad fears. 355
What if in wild amazement, and affright,
Or, while we speak, within the dire grasp
Of favage hunger, or of favage heat?
Eld. Bro. Peace, Brother, be not over-exquisite
To caft the fashion of uncertain evils ;
For grant they be fo, while they reft unknown,
What need a man forestall his date of grief,
And run to meet what he would most avoid?
Or if they be but falfe alarms of fear,
How bitter is such self-delufion?
I do not think my Sifter so to seek,
Or fo unprincipled in virtue's book,
And the sweet peace that goodness bosoms ever, As that the fingle want of light and noise (Not being in danger, as I trust she is not)
Could ftir the conftant mood of her calm thoughts, And put them into mif-becoming plight.
Virtue could fee to do what virtue would
By her own radiant light, though fun and moon Were in the flat sea sunk.
Oft feeks to fweet retired folitude,
Where with her beft nurse contemplation
She plumes her feathers and lets grow her wings,
That in the various buftle of resort
Were all too ruffled, and sometimes impair'd. 380
He that has light within his own clear breast
May fit i'th center, and enjoy bright day:
But he that hides a dark soul, and foul thoughts,
Benighted walks under the mid-day fun;
Himself is his own dungeon.
2. Bro. 'Tis most true,
That musing meditation most affects
The penfive fecrefy of defert cell,
Far from the chearful haunt of men and herds,
And fits as fafe as in a fenate house;
For who would rob a hermit of his weeds,
His few books, or his beads, or maple dish,
Or do his gray hairs any violence?
But beauty, like the fair Hefperian tree
Laden with blooming gold, had need the guard 395
Of dragon-watch with uninchanted eye,
To fave her bloffoms, and defend her fruit
From the rafh hand of bold incontinence.
You may as well spread out the unfunn'd heaps
Of misers treasure by an out-law's den,
And tell me it is safe, as bid me hope
Danger will wink on opportunity,
And let a fingle helpless maiden pass
Uninjur'd in this wild furrounding waste.
Of night, or loneliness it recks me. not;
I fear the dread events that dog them both,
Left fome ill-greeting touch attempt the perfon
Of our unowned Sifter.
Eld. Bro. I do not, Brother,
Infer, as if I thought my Sifter's state
Secure without all doubt, or controversy:
Yet where an equal poise of hope and fear
Does arbitrate th' event, my nature is
That I incline to hope, rather than fear,
And gladly banish squint suspicion.
My Sifter is not so defenseless left
As you imagin; she' has a hidden strength
Which you remember not.
2. Bro. What hidden ftrength,
Unless the strength of Heav'n, if you mean that?
El. Bro. I mean that too, but yet a hidden ftrength,
Which if Heav'n gave it, may be term'd her own:
'Tis chastity, my brother, chastity:
She that has that, is clad in complete steel,
And like a quiver'd nymph with arrows keen 425
May trace huge forefts, and unharbor'd heaths,
Infamous hills, and fandy perilous wilds,
Where through the facred rays of chastity,
No favage fierce, bandite, or mountaneer
Will dare to foil her virgin purity:
Yea there, where every desolation dwells
By grots, and caverns fhagg'd with horrid fhades,
She may pass on with unblench'd majefty,
Be it not done in pride, or in presumption.
Some fay no evil thing that walks by night, 435
In fog, or fire, by lake, or moorish fen,
Blue meager hag, or stubborn unlaid ghost,
That breaks his magic chains at Curfeu time,
No goblin, or swart faery of the mine,
Hath hurtful pow'r o'er true virginity.
Do ye believe me yet, or shall I call
Antiquity from the old schools of Greece
To teftify the arms of chastity?
Hence had the huntress Dian her dread bow,
Fair filver-fhafted queen, for ever chaste,
Wherewith fhe tam'd the brinded lioness
And spotted mountain pard, but set at nought
The frivolous bolt of Cupid; Gods and men
Fear'dherstern frown, and she was queen o'th' woods.
What was that fnaky-headed Gorgon fhield, 450
That wife Minerva wore, unconquer'd virgin,
Wherewith fhe freez'd her foes to congeal'd ftone,
But rigid looks of chafte aufterity,
And noble grace that dash'd brute violence
With fudden adoration, and blank awe?
So dear to Heav'n is faintly chastity,
That when a foul is found fincerely so,
A thousand liveried Angels lacky her,
Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt,
And in clear dream, and folemn vifion,
Tell her of things that no grofs 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 foul's effence, 465
Till all be made immortal: but when luft,
By unchafte looks, loose gestures, and foul talk,
But most by leud and lavish act of sin,
Lets in defilement to the inward parts,
The foul grows clotted by contagion,
Imbodies, and imbrutes, till fhe quite lofe
The divine property of her first being.
Such are those thick and gloomy shadows damp
Oft feen in charnel vaults, and fepulchers,
Ling'ring, and fitting by a new made grave,
As loath to leave the body that it lov'd,
And link'd itself by carnal fenfuality
To a degenerate and degraded state.
2. Bro. How charming is divine philofophy! Not harsh, and crabbed, as dull fools fuppofe, 480 But mufical as is Apollo's lute,
And a perpetual feast of nectar'd sweets,
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