The Measure.

           Break off, break off! I feel the different pace
  Of some chaste footing near about this ground.
  Run to your shrouds within these brakes and trees;
  Our number may affright. Some virgin sure
  (For so I can distinguish by mine art)
  Benighted in these woods! Now to my charms,
  And to my wily trains: I shall ere long
  Be well stocked with as fair a herd as grazed
  About my mother Circe. Thus I hurl
  My dazzling spells into the spongy air,
  Of power to cheat the eye with blear illusion,
  And give it false presentments, lest the place
  And my quaint habits breed astonishment,
  And put the damsel to suspicious flight;
  Which must not be, for that's against my course.
  I, under fair pretence of friendly ends,
  And well-placed words of glozing courtesy,
  Baited with reasons not unplausible,
  Wind me into the easy-hearted man,
  And hug him into snares. When once her eye
  Hath met the virtue of this magic dust,
  I shall appear some harmless villager
  Whom thrift keeps up about his country gear.
  But here she comes; I fairly step aside,
  And hearken, if I may her business hear.

The LADY enters.

           LADY. This way the noise was, if mine ear be true,
  My best guide now. Methought it was the sound
  Of riot and ill-managed merriment,
  Such as the jocund flute or gamesome pipe
  Stirs up among the loose unlettered hinds,
  When, for their teeming flocks and granges full,
  In wanton dance they praise the bounteous Pan,
  And thank the gods amiss. I should be loth
  To meet the rudeness and swilled insolence
  Of such late wassailers; yet, oh! where else
  Shall I inform my unacquainted feet
  In the blind mazes of this tangled wood?
  My brothers, when they saw me wearied out
  With this long way, resolving here to lodge
  Under the spreading favour of these pines,
  Stepped, as they said, to the next thicket-side
  To bring me berries, or such cooling fruit
  As the kind hospitable woods provide.
  They left me then when the grey-hooded Even,
  Like a sad votarist in palmer's weed,
  Rose from the hindmost wheels of Phoebus' wain.
  But where they are, and why they came not back,
  Is now the labour of my thoughts. 'Tis likeliest
  They had engaged their wandering steps too far;
  And envious darkness, ere they could return,
  Had stole them from me. Else, O thievish Night,
  Why shouldst thou, but for some felonious end,
  In thy dark lantern thus close up the stars
  That Nature hung in heaven, and filled their lamps
  With everlasting oil to give due light
  To the misled and lonely traveller?
  This is the place, as well as I may guess,
  Whence even now the tumult of loud mirth
  Was rife, and perfect in my listening ear;
  Yet nought but single darkness do I find.
  What might this be? A thousand fantasies
  Begin to throng into my memory,
  Of calling shapes, and beckoning shadows dire,
  And airy tongues that syllable men's names
  On sands and shores and desert wildernesses.
  These thoughts may startle well, but not astound
  The virtuous mind, that ever walks attended
  By a strong siding champion, Conscience.
  O, welcome, pure-eyed Faith, white-handed Hope,
  Thou hovering angel girt with golden wings,
  And thou unblemished form of Chastity!
  I see ye visibly, and now believe
  That He, the Supreme Good, to whom all things ill
  Are but as slavish officers of vengeance,
  Would send a glistering guardian, if need were,
  To keep my life and honour unassailed. . . .
  Was I deceived, or did a sable cloud
  Turn forth her silver lining on the night?
  I did not err: there does a sable cloud
  Turn forth her silver lining on the night,
  And casts a gleam over this tufted grove.
  I cannot hallo to my brothers, but
  Such noise as I can make to be heard farthest
  I'll venture; for my new-enlivened spirits
  Prompt me, and they perhaps are not far off.

Song.

  Sweet Echo, sweetest nymph, that liv'st unseen
                   Within thy airy shell
           By slow Meander's margent green,
  And in the violet-embroidered vale
           Where the love-lorn nightingale
  Nightly to thee her sad song mourneth well:
  Canst thou not tell me of a gentle pair
           That likest thy Narcissus are?
                    O, if thou have
           Hid them in some flowery cave,
                    Tell me but where,
           Sweet Queen of Parley, Daughter of the Sphere!
           So may'st thou be translated to the skies,
  And give resounding grace to all Heaven's harmonies!

           COMUS. Can any mortal mixture of earth's mould
  Breathe such divine enchanting ravishment?
  Sure something holy lodges in that breast,
  And with these raptures moves the vocal air
  To testify his hidden residence.
  How sweetly did they float upon the wings
  Of silence, through the empty-vaulted night,
  At every fall smoothing the raven down
  Of darkness till it smiled! I have oft heard
  My mother Circe with the Sirens three,
  Amidst the flowery-kirtled Naiades,
  Culling their potent herbs and baleful drugs,
  Who, as they sung, would take the prisoned soul,
  And lap it in Elysium: Scylla wept,
  And chid her barking waves into attention,
  And fell Charybdis murmured soft applause.
  Yet they in pleasing slumber lulled the sense,
  And in sweet madness robbed it of itself;
  But such a sacred and home-felt delight,
  Such sober certainty of waking bliss,
  I never heard till now. I'll speak to her,
  And she shall be my queen.—Hail, foreign wonder!
  Whom certain these rough shades did never breed,
  Unless the goddess that in rural shrine
  Dwell'st here with Pan or Sylvan, by blest song
  Forbidding every bleak unkindly fog
  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
  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 guides?
           LADY. They left me weary on a grassy turf.
           COMUS. By falsehood, or discourtesy, or why?
           LADY. To seek i' the 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!
           COMUS. Imports their loss, beside