John Milton

“ Sabrina rises, attended by water-Nymphs
Spirit
Goddess dear,
We implore thy powerful hand
To undo the charmed band
Of true Virgin here distrest,
Through the force and through the wile
Of unblest inchanter vile.
Sabrina
Shepherd, ’tis my office best
To help insnared chastity.
Brightest Lady, look on me. ”

“ She hutch’t th’all-worshipt ore and precious gems,
To store her children with. If all the world
Should in a pet of temperance feed on Pulse,
Drink the clear stream, and nothing wear but Freize,
Th’all-giver would be unthank’t, would be unprais’d,
Not half his riches known, and yet despis’d;
And we should serve him as a grudging master,
As a penurious niggard of his wealth;
And live like Natures bastards, not her sons,
Who would be quite surcharged with her own weight,
And strangl’d with her waste fertility,
Th’earth cumber’d, and the wing’d air dark’t with plumes ”

“ We cannot free the Lady that sits here
In stony fetters fixt and motionless;
Yet stay, be not disturb’d; now I bethink me,
Som other means I have which may be us’d,
Which once of Meliboeus old I learnt,
The soothest Shepherd that ere pip’t on plains.
There is a gentle Nymph not farr from hence,
That with moist curb sways the smooth Severn stream
Sabrina is her name; a Virgin pure ”