er hands, and crowned with a wreath of
flowers and berries.]

_Ceres_: What! loose, and chatting here at play,
All in the broad and staring day!
Why children! this is something queer!

_1st Dryad:_ But, mistress, see the sleeper here.

_Ceres:_ A fair excuse, I own, the sight!
Theseus deserted her last night.

_2d Dryad:_ How knew you that, my lady dear?

_Ceres:_ Well sought--for I was far from here:
Whiles o'er the crisp Ionian main
I shook the winnowed dragon rein--

_3d Dryad:_ Invented error! Sister! fie!
Our Queen has trapped you in a lie.

_2d Dryad:_ A lie!

_Ceres_ A lie?

_3d Dryad:_ Deceit forgets
How Truth is always trailing nets.
While you, sweet Empress, berry crowned,
Were on the Ionian westward bound,
Our sister puffed you towards the east,
With words about a wedding feast.

_Ceres_ How thin a bubble blame may be!
I sought for doves in Italy;
But orient was my main intent,
And on an Indian nuptial bent.

_2d Dryad:_ Now honey-lips, the lie is where?

_4th Dryad:_ She weeps--

_2d Dryad:_ Fool fingered thing!--

_Ceres_ Forbear.
Whiles o'er the crisp Ionian main
I shook the winnowed dragon rein,
A Triton clove the wake behind,
And, with a hailing will, did wind
Such parley through his crankled horn,
As all the air was echo torn.
I stayed--he told what did betide
Of truant Theseus and his bride;
Which having heard, I did repair
Unto that subterranean lair
Wherein the dreadful Sisters three
Vex out the threads of destiny,
But they were sorely overtasked;
So techy, too, that when I asked
If he could not be plagued for this
Unloving piece of business,
With knots and burs upon his thread,
They would not speak, nor lift the head:
Yet saw I how his flax did run
Smoothly, and much is yet unspun.

_4th Dryad:_ Sweet Queen, adieu--come, let's away,
We keep no sunshine holiday.

_Ceres_ Stay, children, stay.
Poor things! I do remember me,
How I did seek Proserpine.
We must not leave her thus forlorn:
Auroral grace in her is born,
And, rarer else, the finest sense
Of feeling and intelligence.
Mortals of such ethereal grain
Are quickened both for joy and pain;
Theirs is the affluence of joy,
And pain that sorely doth annoy.
And,