SECOND BROTHER

Or if our eyes: Be bar worser that happiness, might we but hear The folded flocks penned in their watled coats, Or found of pastoral reed with oaten stops, Or whistle from the Lodge, or village cock Count the night watches to his feathery Dams, Would be some solace yet, some little cheering In this close dungeon of innumerous bows. But o that hapless virgin our lost sister Where may she wander now, whither betake her From the chill Due, amongst rude burrs and thistles? Perhaps some cold bank is her bolster now Or against 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 he direful grasp Of Savage hunger, or of Savage heat? How charming is divine Philosophy! Not 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 raigns. Me thought so too, what should it be? Heaven keep my sister, again again and near, Best draw, and stand upon our guard. Oh brother it's my father Shepherd sure. Oh night and shades How are ye joined with hell in triple knot Ag inst unarmed weakness of one virgin Alone, and helpless! is this the confidence You gave me brother? It's most true That musing meditation most affects The Pensive secrecy of desert cell Far from the cheer full haunt of men, and heards, And sits as safe as in a Senate house For who would rob and Hermit of his weeds His few books, or his beads, or maple dish, Or do his grey hairs any violence? But beauty Like the fair Hesperian tree Laden with blooming gold, had needs the guard Of dragon watch with uninchanted eye To save her blossoms, and defend her fruit From the rash hand of bold Incontinence. You may as well spread out the unsunned heaps Of misers treasure by and outlaws den And tell me it is safe, as bid me hope Danger will wink on opportunity And let a single helpless maiden pass Uninjured in this wild surrounding wast. Of night, or loneliness it recks me not I fear the dreaded events that dog them both, I est some ill greeting touch attempt the person Of our unowned sister. What hidden strength Unless the strength of heaven, if mean that?