English

Unquiet thought, whom at the first I bred,
Of th' inward bale of my love pined hart:
And sithens have with sighes and sorrowes fed,
Till greater then my wombe thou woxen art.
Breake forth at length out of the inner part,
In which thou lurkest lyke to vipers brood:
And seeke some succour both to ease my smart
And also to sustayne thy selfe with food.
But if in presence of that fayrest proud
Thou chance to come, fall lowly at her feet:
And with meeke humblesse and afflicted mood,
Pardon for thee, and grace for me intreat.

Happy ye leaves! whenas those lily hands,
Which hold my life in their dead-doing might,
Shall handle you, and hold in love's soft bands,
Like captives trembling at the victor's sight.

And happy lines! on which, with starry light,
Those lamping eyes will deign sometimes to look,
And read the sorrows of my dying sprite,
Written with tears in heart's close-bleeding book.
And happy rhymes! bathed in the sacred brook
Of Helicon, whence she derived is;
When ye behold that angel's blessed look,

Thou who with Ivy deckt thy dangling haire;
We, armd with jaulins, to thy Rites repaire.
Bright ornaments of heauen, thy suppliants heare:
To thee their hands thy noble Thebans reare.
O favour! hether turne thy virgin face:
With thy syderiall lookes disperse and chace
These lowring clouds, the threats of Erebus ,
And rage of greedy fate, from ours and vs.
It thee becomes to haue thy tresses bound
With vernall flowres, with Tyrian miter crown'd,
And girt in Ivy wreathes: now liberally
Let flow, and now in knots thy tresses tie.

PART THE THIRD

Queen OF G ERAR and A BIMELECH

R ECITATIVE

Queen . How dar'st thou see my face, thus blown and bloated ,
With these dire sorrows thou hast heap'd upon us!
Art thou not married? am I not thy wife?
Canst thou bestow thine heart upon another,
And not be perjur'd? But behold thy crime,

PART THE SECOND

R ECITATIVE

S ARAH . Is this a garden, that a silver fountain?
Are these sweet flow'rs, and those embow'ring shades?
No — nature in distress denies it all.

AIR

There is no rose to minds in grief;
There is no lilly for despair;
Tears and distraction are relief,

PART I

FIRST CHORUS

Welcome Abraham and his train
To Abimelech's domain;
Welcome, O ye great distrest!
To our peaceful bed of rest:
Welcome ye congenial souls
To our board and to our bowls;
Welcome Abraham and his train
To Abimelech's domain.

A BIMELECH and S ARAH

Recitative

Goe you my lynes, Embassadors of love,
With my harts trybute to her conquering eyes,
From whence, if you one teare of pitty move
For all my woes, that onely shall suffise.

When you Minerva in the sunne behold,
At her perfection stand you then and gaze,
Where, in the compasse of a Marygold,
Meridianis sits within a maze.

And let Invention of her beauty vaunt,

When first I ended, then I first began,
The more I travell, further from my rest,
Where most I lost, there most of all I wan,
Pyned with hunger, rysing from a feast.

Mee thinks I flee, yet want I legs to goe,
Wise in conceite, in acte a very sot,
Ravisht with joy, amidst a hell of woe,
What most I seeme, that surest am I not.

I build my hopes, a world above the skye,
Yet with the Mole, I creepe into the earth,
In plenty, am I starv'd with penury,
And yet I surfet in the greatest dearth.

Define my love, and tell the joyes of heaven,
Expresse my woes, and shew the paynes of hell,
Declare what fate unlucky starres have given,
And aske a world upon my life to dwell.

Make knowne that fayth, unkindnes could not move,
Compare my worth with others base desert,
Let vertue be the tuch-stone of my love,
So may the heavens reade wonders in my hart.

Behold the Clowdes which have eclips'd my sunne,
And view the crosses which my course doth let,
Tell mee, if ever since the world begunne,

Who list to praise the dayes delicious lyght,
Let him compare it to her heavenly eye:
The sun-beames to that lustre of her sight,
So may the learned like the similie.

The mornings Crimson, to her lyps alike,
The sweet of Eden , to her breathes perfume,
The fayre Elizia , to her fayrer cheeke,
Unto her veynes, the onely Phaenix plume.

The Angels tresses, to her tressed hayre,