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, If she be right invoked in warbled song;For maidenhood she loves, and will be swift To aid a virgin, such as was herself, In hard-besetting need. This will I try, And add the power of some adjuring verse.
SONG.
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;Listen for dear honour's sake, Goddess of the silver lake, Listen and save!
Listen, and appear to us, In name of great Oceanus.
By the earth-shaking Neptune's mace, And Tethys' grave majestic pace;By hoary Nereus' wrinkled look, And the Carpathian wizard's hook;By scaly Triton's winding shell, And old soothsaying Glaucus' spell;By Leucothea's lovely hands, And her son that rules the strands;By Thetis' tinsel-slippered feet, And the songs of Sirens sweet;By dead Parthenope's dear tomb, And fair Ligea's golden comb, Wherewith she sits on diamond rocks Sleeking her soft alluring locks;By all the Nymphs that nightly dance Upon thy streams with wily glance;Rise, rise, and heave thy rosy head From thy coral-paven bed, And bridle in thy headlong wave, Till thou our summons answered have.
Listen and save!
SABRINA rises, attended by water-nymphs, and sings.
By the rushy-fringed bank, Where grows the willow and the osier dank, My sliding chariot stays, Thick set with agate, and the azurn sheen Of turkis blue, and emerald green, That in the channel strays;Whilst from off the waters fleet Thus I set my printless feet O'er the cowslip's velvet head, That bends not as I tread.
Gentle swain, at thy request I am here!
SPIR. Goddess dear, We implore thy powerful hand To undo the charmed band Of true virgin here distressed Through the force and through the wile Of unblessed enchanter vile.
