"_And now, behold your tender nurse, the Air,
And common neighbour that aye runs around;
How many pictures and impressions fair,
Within her empty regions are there found,
Which to your senses, Dancing do propound?
For what are breath, speech, echoes, music, winds
But Dancings of the Air, in sundry kinds?_
44.
"_For when you Breathe, the air in order moves;
Now in, now out, in time and measure true
And when you Speak, so well the Dancing loves
That doubling oft, and oft redoubling new,
With thousand forms she doth herself endue.
For all the words that from your lips repair,
Are nought but tricks and turnings of the Air._
45.
"_Hence is her prattling daughter, ECHO, born,
That dances to all voices she can hear.
There is no sound so harsh that she doth scorn;
Nor any time, wherein she will forbear
The airy pavement with her feet to wear;
And yet her hearing sense is nothing quick,
For after time she endeth every trick._"
46.
"_And thou, sweet Music, Dancing's only life,
The ear's sole happiness, the Air's best speech,
Loadstone of fellowship, Charming rod of strife,
The soft mind's Paradise, the sick mind's Leech,
With thine own tongue, thou trees and stones canst teach,
That when the Air doth dance her finest measure.
Then art thou born, the gods' and men's sweet pleasure._"
47.
"_Lastly, where keep the Winds their revelry,
Their violent turnings, and wild whirling Hayes;
But in the Air's tralucent gallery?
Where she herself is turned a hundred ways,
While with those Maskers, wantonly she plays.
Yet in this misrule, they such rule embrace
As two, at once, encumber not the place._
48.
"_If then Fire, Air, Wandering and Fixed Lights,
In every province of th' imperial sky,
Yield perfect forms of Dancing to your sights;
In vain I teach the ear, that which the eye,
With certain view, already doth descry;
But for your eyes perceive not all they see,
In this, I will your senses' master be._
49.
"_For lo, the Sea that fleets about the land,
And like a girdle clips her solid waist,
Music and Measure both doth understand
For his great Crystal Eye is always cast
Up to the Moon, and on her fixèd fast;
And as she danceth, in her pallid sphere,
So danceth he about the centre here._
50.
"_Sometimes his proud green waves, in order set,
One after other, flow unto the shore;
Which when they have with many kisses wet,
They ebb away in order, as before:
And to make known his Courtly Love the more,
He oft doth lay aside his three-forked mace,
And with his arms the timorous Earth embrace._
51.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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