With a chain and a trundle-bed following at th' heels,
And will they not cry then, the world runs a-wheels?
As for example, a belly and no face,

With the bill of a shoveler may here come in place;
The haunches of a drum, with the feet of a pot,
And the tail of a Kentish man to it: why not?
Yet would I take the stars to be cruel

If the crab and the rope-maker ever fight duel,
On any dependence, be it right, be it wrong:
But, mum: a thread may be drawn out too long.

Here the second Antimasque of Phantasms came forth, and danced.
Phan. Why, this you will say was fantastical now,

As the Cock and the Bull, the Whale and the Cow,

But vanish! away! [They retire.] I have change to present you, And such as I hope will more truly content you.—

Behold the gold-haired Hour descending here, That keeps the gate of heaven, and turns the year! Already with her sight how she doth cheer,

And makes another face of things appear.

Here one of the HOURS descending, the whole scene changed to the bower of ZEPHYRUS, whilst PEACE sung as followeth :

Peace. Why look you so, and all turn dumb,

To see the opener of the New Year come;
My presence rather should invite,

And aid, and urge, and call, to your delight;
The many pleasures that I bring
Are all of youth, of heat, of life and spring,
And were prepared to warm your blood,
Not fix it thus, as if you statues stood.
Cho. We see, we hear, we feel, we taste,

We smell the change in every flower,

We only wish that all could last,
And be as new still as the hour.

Wonder. Wonder, must speak or break; what is this? grows

The wealth of nature here, or art? it shows

As if Favonius, father of the spring,

Who in the verdant meads doth reign sole king,

J

Had roused him here, and shook his feathers, wet
With purple swelling nectar; and had let

The sweet and fruitful dew fall on the ground
To force out all the flowers that might be found:
Or a Minerva with her needle had

The enamoured earth with all her riches clad,
And made the downy Zephyr as he flew
Still to be followed with the Spring's best hue.
The gaudy peacock boasts not in his train
So many lights and shadows, nor the rain-
Resolving Iris, when the Sun doth court her,
Nor purple pheasant while his aunt doth sport her
To hear him crow, and with a perchéd pride
Wave his discoloured neck and purple side.
I have not seen the place could more surprise,
It looks, methinks, like one of Nature's eyes,
Or her whole body set in art: behold!
How the blue bindweed doth itself infold
With honeysuckle, and both these entwine
Themselves with bryony and jessamine,

To cast a kind and odoriferous shade.

Phan. How better than they are, are all things made By Wonder? But awhile refresh thine eye,

I'll put thee to thy oftener, What and Why?

Here, to a loud music, the Bower opens, and the MASQUERS are discovered as the Glories of the Spring.

Won. Thou wilt indeed; what better change appears? Whence is it that the air so sudden clears,

And all things in a moment turn so mild?

Whose breath or beams have got proud earth with child
Of all the treasure that great Nature's worth,
And makes her every minute to bring forth?
How comes it winter is so quite forced hence,

And locked up under ground? that every sense
Hath several objects? trees have got their heads,

And fields their coats? that now the shining meads
Do boast the paunce, the lily, and the rose;
And every flower doth laugh as Zephyr blows?
That seas are now more even than the land?
The rivers run as smoothéd by his hand;
Only their heads are crispéd by his stroke :-
How plays the yearling with his brow scarce broke
Now in the open grass! and frisking lambs
Make wanton salts about their dry-sucked dams,
Who to repair their bags do rob the fields!

How is't each bough a several music yields?
The lusty throstle, early nightingale,
Accord in tune, though vary in their tale;
The chirping swallow called forth by the sun,
And crested lark doth his division run?
The yellow bees the air with murmur fill,
The finches carol, and the turtles bill?
Whose power is this? what god?

Phan. Behold a king,

Whose presence maketh this perpetual spring;
The glories of which spring grow in that bower,
And are the marks and beauties of his power.

Cho. 'Tis he, 'tis he, and no power else,

That makes all this what Phant'sie tells;
The founts, the flowers, the birds, the bees,
The herds, the flocks, the grass, the trees,
Do all confess him; but most these
Who call him lord of the four seas,
King of the less and greater isles,

And all those happy when he smiles.

Advance, his favour calls you to advance,

And do your this night's homage in a dance.

Here they danced their ENTRY, after which they sung again.

Cho. Again! again! you cannot be

Of such a true delight too free,

Which, who once saw, would ever see:

And if they could the object prize,

Would, while it lasts, not think to rise,
But wish their bodies all were eyes.

Here they danced their Main Dance, after which they sung.

Cho. In curious knots and mazes so

The Spring at first was taught to go;
And Zephyr, when he came to woo
His Flora, had their motions too:

And thence did Venus learn to lead

The Idalian brawls, and so to tread

As if the wind, not she, did walk;
Nor prest a flower, nor bowed a stalk.

Here they danced with the LADIES, ana the whole REVELS followed: after which AURORA appeared (the Night and Moon being descended), and this Epilogue followed.

Aur. I was not wearier where I lay

By frozen Tithon's side to-night,
Than I am willing now to stay,
And be a part of your delight.
But I am urgéd by the Day,

Against my will, to bid you come away.

Cho. They yield to time, and so must all.

As night to sport, day doth to action call;
Which they the rather do obey,

Because the Morn with roses strews the way.

Here they danced their going off

AND THUS IT ENDED.

PLEASURE RECONCILED TO VIRTUE:

A MASQUE;

As it was presented at Court, before King James, 1619.

The Scene was the Mountain

ATLAS,

Who had his top ending in the figure of an old man, his head and beard all hoary and frost, as if his shoulders were covered with snow: the rest wood and rock. A grove of ivy at his feet; out of which, to a wild music of cymbals, flutes, and tabors, is brought forth COMUS, the god of Cheer, or the Belly, riding in triumph, his head crowned with roses and other flowers, his hair curled: they that wait upon him crowned with ivy, their javelins done about with it; one of them going with HERCULES his bowl bare before him, while the rest present him with this

HYMN.

FULL CHORUS.

Room! room! make room for the Bouncing Belly,
First father of sauce, and deviser of jelly ;

Prime master of arts, and the giver of wit,
That found out the excellent engine the spit;
The plough and the flail, the mill and the hopper,
The hutch and the boulter, the furnace and copper,
The oven, the baven, the mawkin, the peel,
The hearth and the range, the dog and the wheel :
He, he first invented the hogshead and tun,
The gimlet and vice too, and taught them to run,
And since with the funnel and Hippocras bag,

He has made of himself, that now he cries swag!

Which shows, though the pleasure be but of four inches,

Yet he is a weasel, the gullet that pinches

Of any delight, and not spares from his back
Whatever to make of the belly a sack!