12
COMUS
With their grave Saws, in slumber ly.
We that are of purer fire
Imitate the Starry Quire,
Who in their nightly watchfull Sphears
Lead in swift round the Months and Years.
The Sounds and Seas with all their finny drove
Now to the Moon in wavering Morrice move;
And on the Tawny Sands and Shelves
Trip the pert Fairies and the dapper Elves.
By dimpled Brook, and Fountain brim,
The Wood-Nymphs, deckt with Daisies trim,
Their merry wakes and pastimes keep:
What hath night to do with sleep?
Night hath better sweets to prove,
Venus now wakes, and wak’ns Love.
Com, let us our rights begin;
’Tis onely day-light that makes Sin,
Which these dun shades will ne’re report.
Hail, Goddesse of Nocturnal sport,
Dark vaild Cotytto, t’ whom the secret flame
Of mid-night Torches burns! mysterious Dame
That ne’re art call’d but when the Dragon woom
Of Stygian darknes spets her thickest gloom,
And makes one blot of all the ayr!
Stay thy cloudy Ebon chair,
We that are of purer fire
Imitate the Starry Quire,
Who in their nightly watchfull Sphears
Lead in swift round the Months and Years.
The Sounds and Seas with all their finny drove
Now to the Moon in wavering Morrice move;
And on the Tawny Sands and Shelves
Trip the pert Fairies and the dapper Elves.
By dimpled Brook, and Fountain brim,
The Wood-Nymphs, deckt with Daisies trim,
Their merry wakes and pastimes keep:
What hath night to do with sleep?
Night hath better sweets to prove,
Venus now wakes, and wak’ns Love.
Com, let us our rights begin;
’Tis onely day-light that makes Sin,
Which these dun shades will ne’re report.
Hail, Goddesse of Nocturnal sport,
Dark vaild Cotytto, t’ whom the secret flame
Of mid-night Torches burns! mysterious Dame
That ne’re art call’d but when the Dragon woom
Of Stygian darknes spets her thickest gloom,
And makes one blot of all the ayr!
Stay thy cloudy Ebon chair,
