Thy baths shall be the juice of July flowers,
Spirit of roses and of violets,

The milk of unicorns, and panthers' breath
Gather'd in bags, and mixt with Cretan wines.
Our drink shall be prepared gold and amber;
Which we will take until my roof whirl round
With the vertigo: and my dwarf shall dance,
My eunuch sing, my fool make up the antic;
Whilst we, in changed shapes, act Ovid's tales:
Thou, like Europa now, and I like Jove;
Then I like Mars, and thou like Erycine;
So of the rest, till we have quite run through
And wearied all the fables of the gods.

TOWERING SENSUALITY.

Sir Epicure Mammon, expecting to obtain the Philosopher's Stone, riots in the anticipation of enjoyment.

Enter MAMMON and SURLY.

Mam. Come on, sir. Now, you set your foot on shore
In Novo Orbe: here's the rich Peru:

And there within, sir, are the golden mines,
Great Solomon's Ophir! he was sailing to 't
Three years; but we have reached it in ten months.
This is the day wherein, to all my friends,

I will pronounce the happy words, BE RICH.—

Do we succeed? Is our day come? and holds it?
Face. The evening will set red upon you, sir;
You have colour for it, crimson: the red ferment
Has done his office: three hours hence prepare you
To see projection.

Mam. Pertinax, my Surly,

Again I say to thee, aloud, BE RICH.

This day thou shalt have ingots; and to-morrow
Give lords the affront.—Is it, my Zephyrus, right?—

Thou'rt sure thou saw'st it blood?

Face. Both blood and spirit, sir.

Mant. I will have all my beds blown up, not stuff'd: Down is too hard.

My mists

I'll have of perfume, vapoured 'bout the room
To lose ourselves in; and my baths, like pits,
To fall into from whence we will come forth
And roll us dry in gossamer and roses.
Is it arriv'd at ruby?

And they shall fan me with ten estrich tails
Apiece, made in a plume to gather wind.

We will be brave, Puffe, now we have the med'cine.
My meat shall all come in in Indian shells,
Dishes of agate, set in gold, and studded

With emeralds, sapphires, hyacinths, and rubies.
The tongues of carps, dormice, and camels' heels,
Boil'd in the spirit of sol and dissolv'd pearl,
Apicius' diet 'gainst the epilepsy.

And I will eat these broths with spoons of amber,
Headed with diamond and carbuncle.

My foot-boy shall eat pheasants, calver'd salmons,
Knots, godwits, lampreys: I myself will have
The beards of barbels serv'd instead of salads;
Oil'd mushrooms; and the swelling, unctuous paps
Of a fat pregnant sow, newly cut off,

Drest with an exquisite and poignant sauce,
For which I'll say unto my cook, "There's gold;
Go forth, and be a knight."

Face.

A little, how it heightens.

Sir, I'll go look

[Exit FACE.

I'll have of taffeta-sarsnet, soft and light
As cobwebs; and for all my other raiment,
It shall be such as might provoke the Persian,
Were he to teach the world riot anew:

My gloves of fishes and birds' skins, perfum'd
With gums of paradise and eastern air.

Sur. And do you think to have the stone with this?
Mam. No; I do think t' have all this with the stone'
Sur. Why, I have heard he must be homo frugi,
A pious, holy, and religious man,

One free from mortal sin, a very virgin.

Mam. That makes it, sir; he is so; BUT I BUY IT.

THE WITCH.

From the Pastoral Fragment, entitled "The Sad Shepherd."

Alken.

Know ye the witch's dell?

Scathlock. No more than I do know the walks of hell.

Alken. Within a gloomy dimble she doth dwell,

Down in a pit o'ergrown with brakes and briers,

Close by the ruins of a shaken abbey,

Torn with an earthquake down unto the ground,—
'Mongst graves and grots, near an old charnel-house,
Where you shall find her sitting in her form,
As fearful and melancholic as that
She is about; with caterpillars' kells,
And knotty cobwebs, rounded in with spells.
Then she steals forth to relief in the fogs,
And rotten mists, upon the fens and bogs,
Down to the drowned lands of Lincolnshire,

To make ewes cast their lambs, swine eat their farrow,
And housewives' tun not work, nor the milk churn!
Writhe children's wrists, and suck their breath in sleep,
Get vials of their blood! and where the sea

Casts up his slimy ooze, search for a weed
To open locks with, and to rivet charms,
Planted about her in the wicked feat
Of all her mischiefs; which are manifold.
John. I wonder such a story could be told
Of her dire deeds.

George. I thought a witch's banks

Had inclosed nothing but the merry pranks
Of some old woman.

Scath. As it would quickly appear had we the store Of his collects.

Can speak her right.

Scar. He knows her shifts and haunts

Alken. And all her wiles and turns. The venom'd plants Wherewith she kills! where the sad mandrake grows, Whose groans are deathful; and dead-numbing nightshade,

The stupefying hemlock, adder's tongue,

And martagan: the shrieks of luckless owls
We hear, and croaking night-crows in the air!
Green-bellied snakes, blue fire-drakes in the sky,
And giddy flitter-mice with leather wings!
The scaly beetles, with their habergeons,
That make a humming murmur as they fly!
There in the stocks of trees white fairies dwell,
And span-long elves that dance about a pool,
With each a little changeling in their arms!
The airy spirits play with falling stars,
And mount the spheres of fire to kiss the moon!
While she sits reading by the glow-worm's light,
Or rotten wood, o'er which the worm hath crept,
The baneful schedule of her nocent charms.

A MEETING OF WITCHES,

FOR THE PURPOSE OF DOING A MISCHIEF TO A JOYFUL HOUSE, AND BRINGING AN EVIL SPIRIT INTO BIRTH IN THE MIDST OF IT.

From the Masque of Queens.

Charm. The owl is abroad, the bat and the toad,
And so is the cat-a-mountain;

The ant and the mole both sit in a hole,
And the frog peeps out of the fountain:
The dogs they do bay and the timbrels play,
The spindle is now a-turning;

The moon it is red and the stars are fled,
But all the sky is a-burning.

1st Hag. I have been all day looking after
A raven feeding upon a quarter;

And soon as she turn'd her beak to the south,
I snatch'd this morsel out of her mouth.

2nd Hag. I have been gathering wolves' hairs,
The mad dog's foam and the adder's ears!
The spurging of a dead man's eyes,

And all since the evening star did rise.

3rd Hag. I, last night, lay all alone

On the ground to hear the mandrake groan;
And pluck'd him up, though he grew full low,
And as I had done, the cock did crow.

4th Hag. And I have been choosing out this skull
From charnel-houses that were full;

From private grots and public pits;
And frighted a sexton out of his wits.

5th Hag. Under a cradle I did creep,

By day; and when the child was asleep
At night, I suck'd the breath; and rose,
And pluck'd the nodding nurse by the nose.