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 their unrazored lips.
           COMUS. Two such I saw, what time the laboured ox
  In his loose traces from the furrow came,
  And the swinked hedger at his supper sat.
  I saw them under a green mantling vine,
  That crawls along the side of yon small hill,
  Plucking ripe clusters from the tender shoots;
  Their port was more than human, as they stood.
  I took it for a faery vision
  Of some gay creatures of the element,
  That in the colours of the rainbow live,
  And play i' the plighted clouds. I was awe-strook,
  And, as I passed, I worshiped. If those you seek,
  It were a journey like the path to Heaven
  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-practised feet.
          COMUS. I know each lane, and every alley green,
  Dingle, or bushy dell, of this wild wood,
  And every bosky bourn from side to side,
  My daily walks and ancient neighbourhood;
  And, if your stray attendance be yet lodged,
  Or shroud within these limits, I shall know
  Ere morrow wake, or the low-roosted lark
  From her thatched pallet rouse. If otherwise,
  I can conduct you, Lady, to a low
  But loyal 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 tapestry halls
  And courts of princes, where it first was named,
  And yet is most pretended. In a place
  Less warranted than this, or less secure,
  I cannot be, that I should fear to change it.
  Eye me, blest Providence, and square my trial
  To my proportioned strength! Shepherd, lead on.

The TWO BROTHERS.

           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