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[Samson Agonistes continued. He's gone, and who knows how he may report Thy words by adding fuel to the flame?

Line 1350.

For evil news rides post, while good news baits.

[blocks in formation]

Nothing is here for tears, nothing to wail

Or knock the breast, no weakness, no contempt, Dispraise or blame, nothing but well and fair, And what may quiet us in a death so noble.

Line 1721.

COMUS.

Above the smoke and stir of this dim spot,

[blocks in formation]

Comus continued.]

Ere the blabbing eastern scout,

The nice morn, on the Indian steep
From her cabin'd loop-hole peep.

Line 138.

When the gray-hooded Even,

Like a sad votarist in palmer's weed,

Rose from the hindmost wheels of Phoebus' wain.

A thousand fantasies

Begin to throng into my memory,

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Of calling shapes, and beckoning shadows dire,
And airy tongues, that syllable men's names
On sands, and shores, and desert wildernesses.
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O welcome pure-ey'd Faith, white-handed Hope,
Thou hovering angel, girt with golden wings!

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Was I deceived, or did a sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining on the night?

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Can any mortal mixture of earth's mould
Breathe such divine enchanting ravishment?

Line 244.

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.

Line 249.

Who, as they sung, would take the prison'd soul And lap it in Elysium.

Line 256.

[Comus continued.

Such sober certainty of waking bliss. Line 263.

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' th' plighted clouds.

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It were a journey like the path to heaven,
To help you find them.

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With thy long-levell'd rule of streaming light.

Line 340.

Virtue could see to do what virtue would

By her own radiant light, though sun and moon Were in the flat sea sunk.

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He that has light within his own clear breast
May sit in the centre and enjoy bright day;
But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts
Benighted walks under the midday sun.

Line 381.

The unsunn'd heaps

Of miser's treasure.

Line 398.

'Tis chastity, my Brother, chastity:
She that has that is clad in complete steel.

Line 420.

Some say no evil thing that walks by night.
In fog or fire, by lake or moorish fen,
Blue meagre hag, or stubborn unlaid ghost
That breaks his magic chains at curfew time,
No goblin, or swart faery of the mine,
Hath hurtful power o'er true virginity.

Line 432.

Comus continued.]

So dear to heaven is saintly chastity,

That, when a soul is found sincerely so,
A thousand liveried angels lacky her,
Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt.

How charming is divine philosophy!

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Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose;
But musical as is Apollo's lute,1

And a perpetual feast of nectar'd sweets,
Where no crude surfeit reigns.

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Fill'd the air with barbarous dissonance.

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I was all ear,

And took in strains that might create a soul
Under the ribs of death.

Line 560.

If this fail,

Line 597.

The pillar'd firmament is rottenness,

And earth's base built on stubble.

The leaf was darkish, and had prickles on it,
But in another country, as he said,

Bore a bright golden flower, but not in this soil:
Unknown, and like esteem'd, and the dull swain
Treads on it daily with his clouted shoon.

Enter'd the very lime-twigs of his spells,

Line 631.

And yet came off.

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1 As sweet and musical

As bright Apollo's lute.

Love's Labour's Lost. Act iv. Sc. 3.

[Comus continued.

And live like Nature's bastards, not her sons.

It is for homely features to keep home,
They had their name thence.

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Line 748.

What need a vermeil-tinctur'd lip for that,
Love-darting eyes, or tresses like the morn?

Swinish gluttony

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Ne'er looks to heaven amidst his gorgeous feast, But with besotted base ingratitude

Crams, and blasphemes his feeder.

Enjoy your dear wit, and gay rhetoric,

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That hath so well been taught her dazzling fence.

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His rod revers'd,

And backward mutters of dissevering power.

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Sabrina fair,

Listen where thou art sitting

Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave,
In twisted braids of lilies knitting

The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair.

But now my task is smoothly done,

I can fly, or I can run.

Line 859.

Line 1012.

Or, if Virtue feeble were,

Heaven itself would stoop to her.

Line 1022.

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