Or 'gainst the rugged bark of some broad elm

Leans her unpillowed head, fraught with sad fears. What if in wild amazement and affright?

Or, while we speak, within the direful grasp

Of savage Hunger, or of savage Heat?

ELDER BROTHER.

Peace, brother! be not over-exquisite

To cast the fashion of uncertain evils;

For grant they be so, while they rest unknown,
What need a man forestall his date of grief,
And run to meet what he would most avoid?

Or if they be but false alarms of fear,
How bitter is such self-delusion!

I do not think my sister so to seek,

Or so unprincipled in Virtue's book,

And the sweet peace that goodness bosoms ever,

As that the single want of light and noise

(Not being in danger, as I trust she is not)

Could stir the constant mood of her calm thoughts, And put them into misbecoming plight.

Virtue could see to do what Virtue would

By her own radiant light, though sun and moon

Were in the flat sea sunk. And Wisdom's self Oft seeks to sweet retiréd Solitude,

Where, with her best nurse, Contemplation,

She plumes her feathers, and lets grow her wings,
That in the various bustle of resort

Were all too ruffled, and sometimes impaired.
He that has light within his own clear breast

May sit i' the centre, and enjoy bright day;

But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts,

COMUS.

Imports their loss, beside the present need?

LADY.

No less than if I should my brothers lose.

COMUS.

Were they of manly prime, or youthful bloom?

LADY.

As smooth as Hebe's their unrazored lips.

COMUS.

Two such I saw,

what time the laboured ox

In his loose traces from the furrow came,

And the swinkt 10 hedger at his supper sat ;
I saw them under a green mantling vine
That crawls along the side of yon small hill,