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THE LADY.—This way the noise was, if mine ear be true, | |
| My best guide now; methought it was the sound | |
| Of riot and ill-managed merriment, | |
| Such as the jocund flute or gamesome pipe | |
| Stirs up amongst the loose, unlettered hinds, | 5 |
| When for their teeming flocks and granges full | |
| In wanton dance they praise the bounteous Pan, | |
| And thank the gods amiss. I should be loath | |
| To meet the rudeness and swilled insolence | |
| Of such late wassailers; yet O, where else | 10 |
| Shall I inform my unacquainted feet | |
| In the blind mazes of this tangled wood? | |
| My brothers, when they saw me wearied out | |
| With this long way, resolving here to lodge | |
| Under the spreading favor of these pines, | 15 |
| Stepped, as they said, to the next thicket side | |
| To bring me berries, or such cooling fruit | |
| As the kind, hospitable woods provide. | |
| They left me then, when the gray-hooded even, | |
| Like a sad votarist in palmer’s weed, | 20 |
| Rose from the hindmost wheels of Phœbus’ wain. | |
| But where they are, and why they came not back, | |
| Is now the labor of my thoughts: ’t is likeliest | |
| They had engaged their wandering steps too far, | |
| And envious darkness, ere they could return, | 25 |
| Had stole them from me; else, O thievish night, | |
| Why shouldst thou, but for some felonious end, | |
| In thy dark lantern thus close up the stars, | |
| That nature hung in heaven, and filled their lamps | |
| With everlasting oil, to give due light | 30 |
| To the misled and lonely traveller? | |
| This is the place, as well as I may guess, | |
| Whence even now the tumult of loud mirth | |
| Was rife, and perfect in my listening ear, | |
| Yet naught but single darkness do I find. | 35 |
| What might this be? A thousand fantasies | |
| Begin to throng into my memory, | |
| Of calling shapes, and beckoning shadows dire, | |
| And airy tongues, that syllable men’s names | |
| On sands and shores and desert wildernesses. | 40 |
| These thoughts may startle well, but not astound | |
| The virtuous mind, that ever walks attended | |
| By a strong-siding champion, Conscience. | |
| O welcome, pure-eyed Faith, white-handed Hope, | |
| Thou hovering angel girt with golden wings, | 45 |
| And thou unblemished form of Chastity; | |
| I see you visibly, and now believe | |
| That he, the Supreme Good, to whom all things ill | |
| Are but as slavish officers of vengeance, | |
| Would send a glistering guardian, if need were, | 50 |
| To keep my life and honor unassailed. | |
| Was I deceived, or did a sable cloud | |
| Turn forth her silver lining on the night? | |
| I did not err, there does a sable cloud | |
| Turn forth her silver lining on the night, | 55 |
| And casts a gleam over this tufted grove. | |
| I cannot halloo to my brothers; but | |
| Such noise as I can make, to be heard farthest, | |
| I ’ll venture, for my new-enlivened spirits | |
| Prompt me; and they perhaps are not far off. | 60 |
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