Which, if Heaven gave it, may be termed her own;

"Tis chastity, my brother, chastity:

She that has that is clad in cómplete steel,

And, like a quivered nymph with arrows keen,
May trace huge forests, and unharboured heaths,
Infamous hills, and sandy perilous wilds;
Where, through the sacred rays of chastity,
No savage fierce, bandit, or mountaineer,
Will dare to soil her virgin purity :

Yea there, where very Desolation dwells,

By grots and caverns shagged with horrid shades,

She may pass on with unblenched majesty,

Be it not done in pride or in presumption.
Some say no evil thing that walks by night,
In fog or fire, by lake or moorish fen,
Blue meagre hag, or stubborn unlaid ghost
That breaks his magic chains at curfew time,
No goblin, or swart fairy of the mine,
Hath hurtful power o'er true virginity.

Do

ye believe me yet? or shall I call Antiquity from the old schools of Greece

To testify the arms of chastity?

Hence had the huntress Dian her dread bow,

Fair silver-shafted queen, for ever chaste,

And spotted mountain pard, but set at nought

The frivolous bolt of Cupid; gods and men

Feared her stern frown, and she was queen o' the woods.

What was that snaky-headed Gorgon shield

That wise Minerva wore, unconquered virgin, Wherewith she freezed her foes to congealed stone, But rigid looks of chaste austerity,

And noble grace, that dashed brute violence

With sudden adoration and blank awe?

So dear to Heaven is saintly chastity,13
That when a soul is found sincerely so,
A thousand liveried angels lackey her,
Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt,
And, in clear dream and solemn vision,

Tell her of things that no gross ear can hear;

Till oft converse with heavenly habitants
Begin to cast a beam on the outward shape,
The unpolluted temple of the mind,14

And turns it by degrees to the soul's essence,15

Till all be made immortal; but when lust,
By unchaste looks, loose gestures, and foul talk,

But most by lewd and lavish act of sin,

Lets in defilement to the inward parts,

The soul grows clotted by contagion,

Embodies, and embrutes, till she quite lose
The divine property of her first being.

Such are those thick and gloomy shadows damp

Oft seen in charnel vaults and sepulchres

Lingering, and sitting by a new-made grave,
As loth to leave the body that it loved,
And linked itself by carnal sensuality

To a degenerate and degraded state.

SECOND BROTHER.

How charming is divine philosophy! 16
Nor harsh, and crabbed, as dull fools suppose,
But musical as is Apollo's lute,

And a perpetual feast of nectared sweets,

Where no crude surfeit reigns.

ELDER BROTHER.

List, list! I hear

Some far-off halloo break the silent air.

SECOND BROTHER.

Methought so too; what should it be?

ELDER BROTHER.

For certain

Either some one like us night-foundered here,
Or else some neighbour woodman, or, at worst,
Some roving robber calling to his fellows.

SECOND BROTHER.

Heaven keep my sister! Again, again, and near; Best draw and stand upon our guard.

ELDER BROTHER.

I'll halloo;

If he be friendly, he comes well; if not,

Defence is a good cause, and Heaven be for us.

[The ATTENDANT SPIRIT habited like a Shepherd.]

That halloo I should know; what are you? Speak! Come not too near; you fall on iron stakes else.

SPIRIT.

What voice is that? My young lord? Speak again.