[Footnote 121:  Atropos, the fate who cuts the thread of life.] [Footnote 122:  The watchman’s call.]

THE PROTECTION OF CONSCIENCE.

[From Comus.]

Scene:  A wild wood; night.

Lady:  My brothers, when they saw me wearied out
  With this long way, resolving here to lodge
  Under the spreading favor of these pines,
  Stepped, as they said, 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 grey-hooded Even,
  Like a sad votarist in palmer’s weed,
  Rose from the hindmost wheels of Phoebus’ wain. 
  But where they are, and why they came not back,
  Is now the labor of my thoughts.  ’Tis likeliest
  They had engaged their wandering steps too far;
  And envious darkness, ere they could return,
  Had stolen them from me.  Else, O thievish Night,
  Why shouldst thou, but for some felonious end,
  In thy dark lantern thus close up the stars
  That Nature hung in heaven, and filled their lamps
  With everlasting oil, to give due light
  To the misled and lonely traveller? 
  This is the place, as well as I may guess,
  Whence even now the tumult of loud mirth
  Was rife, and perfect in my listening ear;
  Yet nought but single darkness do I find. 
  What might this be?  A thousand fantasies
  Begin to throng into my memory,
  Of calling shapes and beckoning shadows dire,
  And airy tongues that syllable men’s names
  On sands and shores and desert wildernesses. 
  These thoughts may startle well, but not astound
  The virtuous mind, that ever walks attended
  By a strong siding champion, Conscience. 
  O, welcome, pure-eyed Faith, white-handed Hope,
  Thou hovering angel girt with golden wings,
  And thou unblemished form of Chastity! 
  I see ye visibly, and now believe
  That He, the Supreme Good, to whom all things ill
  Are but as slavish officers of vengeance,
  Would send a glistening guardian, if need were,
  To keep my life and honor unassailed.... 
  Was I deceived, or did a sable cloud
  Turn forth her silver lining on the night? 
  I did not err:  there does a sable cloud
  Turn forth her silver lining on the night,
  And casts a gleam over this tufted grove.

INVOCATION TO LIGHT.

[From Paradise Lost.]

                         Thee I revisit safe,
  And feel thy sovereign vital lamp; but thou
  Revisitest not these eyes, that roll in vain
  To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn;
  So thick a drop serene[123] hath quenched their orbs,
  Or dim suffusion veiled.  Yet not the more
  Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt
  Clear spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill,