Lucasta [32]
force! Ye blew-flam'd daughters oth' abysse, Bring all your snakes, here let them hisse; Let not a leaf its freshnesse keep; Blast all their roots, and as you creepe, And leave behind your deadly slime, Poyson the budding branch in's prime: Wast the proud bowers of this grove, That fiends may dwell in it, and move As in their proper hell, whilst she Above laments this tragedy: Yet pities not our fate; oh faire Vow-breaker, now betroth'd to th' ay'r! Why by those lawes did we not die, As live but one, Lucasta! why---- As he Lucasta nam'd, a groan Strangles the fainting passing tone; But as she heard, Lucasta smiles, Posses<33.14> her round; she's slipt mean whiles Behind the blind of a thick bush, When, each word temp'ring with a blush, She gently thus bespake; Sad swaine, If mates in woe do ease our pain, Here's one full of that antick grief, Which stifled would for ever live, But told, expires; pray then, reveale (To show our wound is half to heale), What mortall nymph or deity Bewail you thus? Who ere you be, The shepheard sigh't,<33.15> my woes I crave Smotherd in me, me<33.16> in my grave; Yet be in show or truth a saint, Or fiend, breath anthemes, heare my plaint, For her and thy breath's symphony, Which now makes full the harmony Above, and to whose voice the spheres Listen, and call her musick theirs; This was I blest on earth with, so As Druids amorous did grow, Jealous of both: for as one day This star, as yet but set in clay, By an imbracing river lay, They steept her in the hollowed brooke, Which from her humane nature tooke, And straight to heaven with winged feare,<33.17> Thus, ravisht with her, ravish her. The nymph reply'd: This holy rape Became the gods, whose obscure shape They cloth'd with light, whilst ill you grieve Your better life should ever live, And weep that she, to whom you wish What heav'n could give, has all its blisse. Calling her angell here, yet be Sad at this true divinity: She's for the altar, not the skies, Whom first you crowne, then sacrifice. Fond man thus to a precipice Aspires, till at the top his eyes Have lost the safety of the plain, Then begs of Fate the vales againe. The now confounded shepheard cries: Ye all-confounding destines! How did you make that voice so sweet Without that glorious form to it? Thou sacred spirit of my deare, Where e're thou hoverst o're us, hear! Imbark thee in the lawrell tree, And a new Phebus follows thee, Who, 'stead of all his burning rayes, Will strive to catch thee with his layes; Or, if within the Orient Vine, Thou art both deity and wine; But if thou takest the mirtle grove, That Paphos is, thou, Queene of Love, And I, thy swain who (else) must die, By no beasts, but thy cruelty: But you are rougher than the winde. Are souls on earth then heav'n<33.18> more kind? Imprisoned in mortality Lucasta would have answered me. Lucasta, Amarantha said, Is she that virgin-star? a maid, Except her prouder livery, In beauty poore, and cheap as I; Whose glory like a meteor shone, Or aery apparition, Admir'd a while, but slighted known. Fierce, as the chafed lyon hies, He rowses him, and to her flies, Thinking to answer with his speare---- Now, as in warre intestine where, Ith' mist of a black battell, each Layes at his next, then makes a breach Through th' entrayles of another, whom He sees nor knows whence he did come, Guided alone by rage and th' drumme, But stripping and impatient wild, He finds too soon his onely child. So our expiring desp'rate lover Far'd when, amaz'd, he did discover Lucasta in this nymph; his sinne Darts the accursed javelin 'Gainst his own breast, which she puts by With a soft lip and gentle eye, Then closes with him on the ground And now her smiles have heal'd his wound. Alexis too again is found; But not untill those heavy crimes She hath kis'd off a thousand times, Who not contented with this pain, Doth threaten to offend again. And now they gaze, and sigh, and weep, Whilst each cheek doth the other's steep, Whilst tongues, as exorcis'd, are calm; Onely the rhet'rick of the palm Prevailing pleads, untill at last They[re]