CYN. Not without wonder, nor without delight Mine eyes have view'd, in contemplation's depth, This work of wit, divine and excellent: What shape, what substance, or what unknown power, In virgin's habit, crown'd with laurel leaves, And olive-branches woven in between, On sea-girt rocks, like to a goddess shines! O front! O face! O all celestial, sure, And more than mortal! Arete, behold Another Cynthia, and another queen, Whose glory, like a lasting plenilune, Seems ignorant of what it is to wane. Nor under heaven an object could be found More fit to please. Let Crites make approach. Bounty forbids to pall our thanks with stay, Or to defer our favour, after view: The time of grace is, when the cause is new. ARE. Lo, here the man, celestial Delia, Who (like a circle bounded in itself) Contains as much as man in fulness may. Lo, here the man; who not of usual earth, But of that nobler and more precious mould Which Phoebus' self doth temper, is composed; And who, though all were wanting to reward, Yet to himself he would not wanting be: Thy favours gain is his ambition's most, And labour's best; who (humble in his height) Stands fixed silent in thy glorious sight. CYN. With no less pleasure than we have beheld This precious crystal work of rarest wit, Our eye doth read thee, now instiled, our Crites; Whom learning, virtue, and our favour last, Exempteth from the gloomy multitude. With common eye the Supreme should not see: Henceforth be ours, the more thyself to be. CRI. Heaven's purest light, whose orb may be eclipsed, But not thy praise; divinest Cynthia! How much too narrow for so high a grace, Thine (save therein) the most unworthy Crites Doth find himself! for ever shine thy fame; Thine honours ever, as thy beauties do. In me they must, my dark world's chiefest lights, By whose propitious beams my powers are raised To hope some part of those most lofty points, Which blessed Arete hath pleased to name, As marks, to which my endeavour's steps should bend: Mine, as begun at thee, in thee must end. THE SECOND MASQUE. ENTER MERCURY AS A PAGE, INTRODUCING EUCOSMOS, EUPATHES, EUTOLMOS, AND EUCOLOS.