Sul. Now shall their love be crost, for being struck,
I'le throw her in the Fount, lest being took
By some night-travaller, whose honest care
May help to cure her. Shepherdess prepare
Your self to die.
Amo. No Mercy I do crave,
Thou canst not give a worse blow than I have;
Tell him that gave me this, who lov'd him too,
He struck my soul, and not my body through,
Tell him when I am dead, my soul shall be
At peace, if he but think he injur'd me.
Sul. In this Fount be thy grave, thou wert not meant
Sure for a woman, thou art so innocent. [flings her into the well
She cannot scape, for underneath the ground,
In a long hollow the clear spring is bound,
Till on yon side where the Morns Sun doth look,
The strugling water breaks out in a Brook. [Exit.
[The God of the River riseth with Amoret in his arms.
God. What powerfull charms my streams do bring
Back again unto their spring,
With such force, that I their god,
Three times striking with my Rod,
Could not keep them in their ranks:
My Fishes shoot into the banks,
There's not one that stayes and feeds,
All have hid them in the weeds.
Here's a mortal almost dead,
Faln 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 plaister 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 watry locks more round
Than Orient Pearl, and far more pure
Than unchast 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 staid.
From my banks I pluck this flower
With holy hand, whose vertuous 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 restor'd my sense, given me new breath, And brought me back out of the arms of death?
God. I have heal'd thy wounds.
Amo. Ay me!
God. Fear not him that succour'd thee:
I am this Fountains 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 companie,
In the cool streams shalt thou lye,
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 spring.
_The SONG.