COMUS
21
When, for their teeming Flocks and granges full,
In wanton dance they praise the bounteous Pan,
And thank the gods amiss. I should be loath
To meet the rudenesse and swill’d insolence
Of such late Wassailers; yet O! where els
Shall I inform my unacquainted feet
In the blind mazes of this tangl’d Wood?
My Brothers, when they saw me wearied out
With this long way, resolving here to lodge
Under the spreading favour of these Pines,
Stept, as they se’d, to the next Thicket side
To bring me Berries, or such cooling fruit
As the kind hospitable Woods provide.
They left me then, when the gray-hooded Eev’n,
Like a sad Votarist in Palmers weed,
Rose from the hindmost wheels of Phœbus wain.
But where they are, and why they came not back,
Is now the labour of my thoughts; ’tis likeliest
They had ingag’d their wandring steps too far,
And envious darknes, e’re they could return,
Had stole them from me; els, O theevish Night,
Why shouldst thou, but for som fellonious end,
In thy dark lantern thus close up the Stars
That nature hung in Heav’n, and fill’d their Lamps
With everlasting oil, to give due light
In wanton dance they praise the bounteous Pan,
And thank the gods amiss. I should be loath
To meet the rudenesse and swill’d insolence
Of such late Wassailers; yet O! where els
Shall I inform my unacquainted feet
In the blind mazes of this tangl’d Wood?
My Brothers, when they saw me wearied out
With this long way, resolving here to lodge
Under the spreading favour of these Pines,
Stept, as they se’d, to the next Thicket side
To bring me Berries, or such cooling fruit
As the kind hospitable Woods provide.
They left me then, when the gray-hooded Eev’n,
Like a sad Votarist in Palmers weed,
Rose from the hindmost wheels of Phœbus wain.
But where they are, and why they came not back,
Is now the labour of my thoughts; ’tis likeliest
They had ingag’d their wandring steps too far,
And envious darknes, e’re they could return,
Had stole them from me; els, O theevish Night,
Why shouldst thou, but for som fellonious end,
In thy dark lantern thus close up the Stars
That nature hung in Heav’n, and fill’d their Lamps
With everlasting oil, to give due light
