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Home  »  The Book of Restoration Verse  »  John Milton (1608–1674)

William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Restoration Verse. 1910.

Song: ‘Sabrina fair’

John Milton (1608–1674)

From ‘Comus

iii
SABRINA fair

Listen where thou art sitting

Under the glassie, cool, translucent wave,

In twisted braids of Lillies knitting

The loose train of thy amber-droping 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 majestick pace,

By hoary Nereus wrincled look,

And the Carpathian wisards hook,

By scaly Tritons winding shell,

And old sooth-saying Glaucus spell,

By Leucothea’s lovely hands,

And her son that rules the strands,

By Thetis tinsel-slipper’d feet,

And the Songs of Sirens sweet,

By dead Parthenope’s dear tomb,

And fair Ligea’s golden comb,

Wherwith 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 rosie head

From thy coral-pav’n bed,

And bridle in thy headlong wave,

Till thou our summons answered have.

Listen and save.

Sabrina rises, attended by water-Nymphes, and sings

By the rushy-fringed bank,

Where grows the Willow and the Osier dank,

My sliding Chariot stayes,

Thick set with Agat, and the azurn sheen

Of Turkis blew, and Emrauld green

That in the channell strayes,

Whilst from off the waters fleet

Thus I set my printless feet

O’re the Cowslips Velvet head,

That bends not as I tread,

Gentle swain at thy request

I am here.

Spirit.Goddess dear

We implore thy powerful hand

To’ undo the charmèd band

Of true Virgin here distrest,

Through the force, and through the wile

Of unblest inchanter vile.

Sabrina.Shepherd ’tis my office best

To help insnared chastity;

Brightest Lady look on me,

Thus I sprinkle on thy brest

Drops that from my fountain pure,

I have kept of pretious cure,

Thrice upon thy fingers tip

Thrice upon thy rubied lip,

Next this marble venom’d seat

Smear’d with gumms of glutenous heat

I touch with chaste palms moist and cold,

Now the spell hath lost his hold;

And I must haste ere morning hour

To wait in Amphitrite’s bowr.