No More Learning

Do ye beleeve me yet, or shall I call
Antiquity from the old Schools of Greece
To testifie the arms of Chastity? 440
Hence had the huntress Dian her dred bow
Fair silver-shafted Queen for ever chaste,
Wherwith she tam'd the brinded lioness
And spotted mountain pard, but set at nought
The frivolous bolt of Cupid, gods and men
Fear'd her stern frown, and she was queen oth' Woods.
What was that snaky-headed Gorgon sheild
That wise Minerva wore, unconquer'd Virgin,
Wherwith she freez'd her foes to congeal'd stone?
But rigid looks of Chast austerity, 450
And noble grace that dash't brute violence
With sudden adoration, and blank aw.
So dear to Heav'n is Saintly chastity,
That when a soul is found sincerely so,
A thousand liveried Angels lacky her,
Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt,
And in cleer dream, and solemn vision
Tell her of things that no gross ear can hear,
Till oft convers with heav'nly habitants
Begin to cast a beam on th'outward shape, 460
The unpolluted temple of the mind.
And turns it by degrees to the souls essence,
Till all be made immortal: but when lust
By unchaste looks, loose gestures, and foul talk,
But most by leud and lavish act of sin,
Lets in defilement to the inward parts,
The soul grows clotted by contagion,
Imbodies, and imbrutes, till she quite loose
The divine property of her first being.
Such are those thick and gloomy shadows damp 470
Oft seen in Charnell vaults, and Sepulchers
Lingering, and sitting by a new made grave,
As loath to leave the body that it lov'd,
And link't it self by carnal sensualty
To a degenerate and degraded state.

2. Bro: 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 nectar'd sweets,
Where no crude surfet raigns.
Eld. Bro: List, list, I hear 480
Som far off hallow break the silent Air.

2. Bro: Me thought so too; what should it be?

Eld.
Bro: For certain
Either som one like us night-founder'd here,
Or els som neighbour Wood-man, or at worst,
Som roaving robber calling to his fellows.

2. Bro: Heav'n keep my sister, agen agen and neer,
Best draw, and stand upon our guard.

Eld. Bro: Ile hallow,
If he be friendly he comes well, if not,
Defence is a good cause, and Heav'n be for us.

[Enter] The attendant Spirit habited like a Shepherd.

That hallow I should know, what are you? speak; 490
Com not too neer, you fall on iron stakes else.

Spir: What voice is that, my young Lord? speak agen.

2. Bro: O brother, 'tis my father Shepherd sure.

Eld. Bro: Thyrsis? Whose artful strains have oft delaid
The huddling brook to hear his madrigal,
And sweeten'd every muskrose of the dale,
How cam'st thou here good Swain? hath any ram
Slip't from the fold, or young Kid lost his dam,
Or straggling weather the pen't flock forsook?