Genius of ancient Greece! whose faithful steps
Well-pleased I follow through the sacred paths
Of nature and of science; nurse divine
Of all heroic deeds and fair desires!
O! let the breath of thy extended praise
Inspire my kindling bosom to the height
Of this untempted theme. Nor be my thoughts
Presumptuous counted, if, amid the calm
That sooths this vernal evening into smiles,
I steal impatient from the sordid haunts
Of strife and low ambition, to attend
Thy sacred presence in the sylvan shade,
By their malignant footsteps ne'er profaned.

Such is the secret union, when we feel
A song, a flow'r, a name at once restore
Those long-connected scenes where first they moved
Th' attention; backward through her mazy walks
Guiding the wanton fancy to her scope,
To temples, courts or fields; with all the band
Of painted forms, of passions and designs
Attendant: whence, if pleasing in itself,
The prospect from that sweet accession gains
Redoubled influence o'er the list'ning mind.
By these mysterious ties the busy pow'r
Of Mem'ry her ideal train preserves

Wake Hercules , awake; but heave up thy blacke eye,
'Tis onely ask'd from thee to looke, and these will die,
Or flie:
Already they are fled,
Whom scorne had else left dead.
At which Mercury descended from the hill, with a garland of Poplar to crowne him

MERCURY

Rest still thou active friend of vertue; These
Should not disturbe the peace of Hercules .
Earths wormes, and Honors dwarfes (at too great ods)
Prove, or provoke the issue of the gods.

Song

OPE aged Atlas, open then thy lappe ,
And from thy beamy bosome strike a light,
That men may read in the mysterious mappe
All lines
And signes
Of royall education, and the right,
See how they come and show,
That are but borne to know.
Descend
Descend
Though pleasure lead,
Feare not to follow:
They who are bred
Within the Hill
Of skill ,
May safely tread
What path they will,
No ground of good is hollow.
In their descent from the Hill, Daedalus came

O more, and more, this was so well,
As praise wants halfe his voyce to tell,
Againe your selves compose,
And now put all the aptnesse on,
Of figure, that proportion,
or colour can disclose.
That if those silent Arts were lost,
Designe, and picture, they might boast,
from you a newer ground,
Instructed by the heightning sence
Of dignitie and reverence,

It followes now you are to prove
The subt'lest maze of all, that's Love.
and if you stay too long,
The faire will thinke you do'em wrong:
Goe choose among — But with a minde
as gentle as the stroaking winde
runs ore the gentler flowers.
And so let all your actions smile,
As if they meant not to beguile,
the Ladies but the houres.

To this the Boule-bearer

Doe you heare my friends? to whom did you sing all this now?
pardon me onely that I aske you, for I doe not looke for an-
swere; Ile answer my selfe, I know it is now such a time as the
Saturnalls for all the World, that every man stands under the eaves
of his own hat, and sings what please him; that's the right, and
the liberty of it. Now you sing of god Comus here the bellie-god;
I say it is well, and I say it is not well: It is well as it is

Great friend and servant of the good,
Let coole a while thy heated blood,
And from thy mighty labour cease.
Lie downe, lie downe,
And give thy troubled spirits peace,
Whilst vertue, for whose sake
Thou dost this god-like travaile take,
May of the choysest herbage make

Come on, come on; and where you go,
so interweave the curious knot,
As ev'n th'observer scarce may know
which lines are Pleasures, and which not:
First figure out the doubtfull way,
at which a while all youth should stay,
Where she and Vertue did contend,
which should have Hercules to friend .
Then as all actions of mankinde,
are but a laborinth, or maze:
So let your Dances be entwin'd,

An eye of looking backe were well,
Or any murmure that would tell
Your thoughts, how you were sent,
and went
To walke with Pleasure, not to dwell.
These, these are houres by vertue spar'd
Her selfe, she being her owne reward:
But she will have you know,
that though
Her sports be soft, her life is hard: