lean and sallow Abstinence!
  Wherefore did Nature pour her bounties forth
  With such a full and unwithdrawing hand,
  Covering the earth with odours, fruits, and flocks,
  Thronging the seas with spawn innumerable,
  But all to please and sate the curious taste?
  And set to work millions of spinning worms,
  That in their green shops weave the smooth-haired silk,
  To deck her sons; and, that no corner might
  Be vacant of her plenty, in her own loins
  She hutched the all-worshipped ore and precious gems,
  To store her children with. If all the world
  Should, in a pet of temperance, feed on pulse,
  Drink the clear stream, and nothing wear but frieze,
  The All-giver would be unthanked, would be unpraised,
  Not half his riches known and yet despised;
  And we should serve him as a grudging master,
  As a penurious niggard of his wealth,
  And live like Nature's bastards, not her sons,
  Who would be quite surcharged with her own weight,
  And strangled with her waste fertility:
  The earth cumbered, and the winged air darked with plumes,
  The herds would over-multitude their lords;
  The sea o'erfraught would swell, and the unsought diamonds
  Would so emblaze the forehead of the deep,
  And so bestud with stars, that they below
  Would grow inured to light, and come at last
  To gaze upon the sun with shameless brows.
  List, Lady; be not coy, and be not cozened
  With that same vaunted name, Virginity.
  Beauty is Nature's coin; must not be hoarded,
  But must be current; and the good thereof
  Consists in mutual and partaken bliss,
  Unsavoury in the enjoyment of itself.
  If you let slip time, like a neglected rose
  It withers on the stalk with languished head.
  Beauty is Nature's brag, and must be shown
  In courts, at feasts, and high solemnities,
  Where most may wonder at the workmanship.
  It is for homely features to keep home;
  They had their name thence: coarse complexions
  And cheeks of sorry grain will serve to ply
  The sampler, and to tease the huswife's wool.
  What need a vermeil-tinctured lip for that,
  Love-darting eyes, or tresses like the morn?
  There was another meaning in these gifts;
  Think what, and be advised; you are but young yet.
          LADY. I had not thought to have unlocked my lips
  In this unhallowed air, but that this juggler
  Would think to charm my judgment, as mine eyes,
  Obtruding false rules pranked in reason's garb.
  I hate when vice can bolt her arguments
  And virtue has no tongue to check her pride.
  Impostor! do not charge most innocent Nature,
  As if she would her children should be riotous
  With her abundance. She, good cateress,
  Means her provision only to the good,
  That live according to her sober laws,
  And holy dictate of spare Temperance.
  If every just man that now pines with want
  Had but a moderate and beseeming share
  Of that which lewdly-pampered Luxury
  Now heaps upon some few with vast excess,
  Nature's full blessings would be well dispensed
  In unsuperfluous even proportion,
  And she no whit encumbered with her store;
  And then the Giver would be better thanked,
  His praise due paid: for swinish gluttony
  Ne'er looks to Heaven amidst his gorgeous feast,
  But with besotted base ingratitude
  Crams, and blasphemes his Feeder. Shall I go on
  Or have I said enow? To him that dares
  Arm his profane tongue with contemptuous words
  Against the sun-clad power of chastity
  Fain would I something say;—yet to what end?
  Thou hast nor ear, nor soul, to apprehend
  The sublime notion and high mystery
  That must be uttered to unfold the sage
  And serious doctrine of Virginity;
  And thou art worthy that thou shouldst not know
  More happiness than this thy present lot.
  Enjoy your dear wit, and gay rhetoric,
  That hath so well been taught her dazzling fence;
  Thou art not fit to hear thyself convinced.
  Yet, should I try, the uncontrolled worth
  Of this pure cause would kindle my rapt spirits
  To such a flame of sacred vehemence
  That dumb things would be moved to sympathise,
  And the brute Earth would lend her nerves, and shake,
  Till all thy magic structures, reared so high,
  Were shattered into heaps o'er thy false head.
          COMUS. She fables not. I feel that I do fear
  Her words set off by some superior power;
  And, though not mortal, yet a cold shuddering dew
  Dips me all o'er, as when the wrath of Jove
  Speaks thunder and the chains of Erebus
  To some of Saturn's crew. I must dissemble,
  And try her yet more strongly.—Come, no more!
  This is mere moral babble, and direct
  Against the canon laws of our foundation.
  I must not suffer this; yet 't is but the lees
  And settlings of a melancholy blood.
  But this will cure all straight; one sip of this
  Will bathe the drooping spirits in delight
  Beyond the bliss of dreams. Be wise, and taste.

  The BROTHERS rush in with swords drawn, wrest his glass out of
  his
  hand, and break it against the ground: his rout make sign of
  resistance, but are all driven in. The ATTENDANT SPIRIT comes in.

           SPIR. What! have you let the false enchanter scape?
  O ye mistook; ye should have snatched his wand,
  And bound him fast. Without his rod reversed,
  And backward mutters of dissevering power,
  We cannot free the Lady that sits here
  In stony fetters fixed and motionless.
  Yet stay: be not disturbed; now I bethink me,
  Some other means I have which may be used,
  Which once of Meliboeus old I learnt,
  The soothest shepherd that e'er piped on plains.
           There is a gentle Nymph not far from hence,
  That with moist curb sways the smooth Severn stream:
  Sabrina is her name: a virgin pure;
  Whilom she was the daughter of Locrine,
  That had the sceptre from his father Brute.
  She, guiltless damsel, flying the mad pursuit
  Of her enraged stepdame, Guendolen,
  Commended her fair innocence to the flood
  That stayed her flight with his cross-flowing course.
  The water-nymphs, that in the bottom played,
  Held up their pearled wrists, and took her in,
  Bearing her straight to aged Nereus' hall;
  Who, piteous of her woes, reared her lank head,
  And gave her to his daughters to imbathe
  In nectared lavers strewed with asphodil,
  And through the porch and inlet of each sense
  Dropt in ambrosial oils, till she revived,
  And underwent a quick immortal change,
  Made Goddess of the river. Still she retains
  Her maiden gentleness, and oft at eve
  Visits the herds along the twilight meadows,
  Helping all urchin blasts, and ill-luck signs
  That the shrewd meddling elf delights to make,
  Which she with precious vialed liquors heals:
  For which the shepherds, at their festivals,
  Carol her goodness loud in rustic lays,
  And throw sweet garland wreaths into her stream
  Of pansies, pinks, and gaudy daffodils.
  And, as the old swain said, she can unlock
  The clasping charm, and thaw the numbing spell,