dead,
Fall’n into my river-head,
Hallowed so with many a spell,
That till now none ever fell.
’Tis a female young and clear,
Cast in by some ravisher:
See, upon her breast a wound,
On which there is no plaster bound.
Yet, she’s warm, her pulses beat,
’Tis a sign of life and heat.—
If thou be’st a virgin pure,
I can give a present cure:
Take a drop into thy wound,
From my watery locks, more round
Than orient pearl, and far more pure
Than unchaste flesh may endure.—
See, she pants, and from her flesh
The warm blood gusheth out afresh.
She is an unpolluted maid;
I must have this bleeding stayed.
From my banks I pluck this flower
With holy hand, whose virtuous power
Is at once to heal and draw.
The blood returns. I never saw
A fairer mortal. Now doth break
Her deadly slumber.—Virgin, speak.

Amo. Who hath restored my sense, given me new breath,
And brought me back out of the arms of death?

God of the R. I have healed thy wounds.

Amo. Aye, me!

God of the R. Fear not him that succoured thee.
I am this fountain’s god: below,
My waters to a river grow,
And ’twixt two banks with osiers set,
That only prosper in the wet,
Through the meadows do they glide,
Wheeling still on every side,
Sometimes winding round about,
To find the evenest channel out.
And if thou wilt go with me,
Leaving mortal company,
In the cool streams shalt thou lie,
Free from harm as well as I:
I will give thee for thy food
No fish that useth in the mud;
But trout and pike, that love to swim
Where the gravel from the brim
Through the pure streams may be seen;
Orient pearl fit for a queen,
Will I give, thy love to win,
And a shell to keep them in;
Not a fish in all my brook
That shall disobey thy look,
But, when thou wilt, come sliding by,
And from thy white hand take a fly:
And, to make thee understand
How I can my waves command,
They shall bubble, whilst I sing,
Sweeter than the silver string.

[Sings.

Amo. Immortal power, that rul’st this holy flood,
I know myself unworthy to be wooed
By thee, a god; for ere this, but for thee,
I should have shown my weak mortality:
Besides, by holy oath betwixt us twain,
I am betrothed unto a shepherd-swain,
Whose comely face, I know, the gods above
May make me leave to see, but not to love.

God of the R. May he prove to thee as true!
Fairest virgin, now adieu:
I must make my waters fly,
Lest they leave their channels dry,
And beasts that come unto the spring
Miss their morning’s watering;
Which I would not; for of late
All the neighbour-people sate
On my banks, and from the fold
Two white lambs of three weeks old
Offered to my deity;
For which this year they shall be free
From raging floods, that as they pass
Leave their gravel in the grass;
Nor shall their meads be overflown
When their grass is newly mown.

Amo. For thy kindness to me shown,
Never from thy banks be blown
Any tree, with windy force,
Cross thy streams, to stop thy course;
May no beast that comes to drink,
With his horns cast down thy brink;
May none that for thy fish do look,
Cut thy banks to dam thy brook;
Barefoot may no neighbour wade
In thy cool streams, wife nor maid,
When the spawns on stones do lie,
To wash their hemp, and spoil the fry!

God of the R. Thanks, virgin. I must down again.
Thy wound will put thee to no pain:
Wonder not so soon ’tis gone;
A holy hand was laid upon.

[Descends.

Amo. And I, unhappy born to be,
Must follow him that flies from me.

[Exit.