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'lea' is a meadow. 966. This song is sung by Lawes while presenting the three young persons to the Earl and Countess of Bridgewater. 967. ~ye~: see note, l. 216. 968. ~so goodly grown~, _i.e._ grown so goodly. _Goodly_ = handsome (A.S. _godlic_ = goodlike). 970. ~timely~. Here an adverb: in l. 689 it is an adjective. Comp. the two phrases in _Macbeth_: "To gain the _timely_ inn," iii. 3. 7; and "To call _timely_ on him," ii. 3. 51. 972. ~assays~, trials, temptations. _Assay_ is used by Milton in the sense of 'attempt' as well as of 'trial': see _Arc._ 80, "I will _assay_, her worth to celebrate." The former meaning is now confined to the form _essay_ (radically the same word); and the use of _assay_ has been still further restricted from its being used chiefly of the testing of metals. Comp. _Par. Lost_, iv. 932, "hard _assays_ and ill successes"; _Par. Reg._ i. 264, iv. 478. 974, 5. ~To triumph~. The whole purpose of the poem is succinctly expressed in these lines. _Stage Direction_: ~Spirit epiloguizes~, _i.e._ sings the epilogue or concluding stanzas. In one of Lawes' manuscripts of the mask, the epilogue consists of twelve lines only, those numbered 1012-1023. From the same copy we find that line 976 had been altered by Lawes in such a manner as to convert the first part of the epilogue into a prologue which, in his character as Attendant Spirit, he sang whilst descending upon the stage:-- _From the heavens_ now I fly, And those happy climes that lie Where day never shuts his eye, Up in the broad _field_ of the sky. There I suck the liquid air All amidst the gardens fair Of Hesperus, and his daughters three That sing about the golden tree. There eternal summer dwells, And west winds, with musky wing, About the cedarn alleys fling Nard and cassia's balmy smells. Iris there with humid bow Waters the odorous banks, that blow Flowers of more mingled hue Than her purfled scarf can show, _Yellow, watchet, green, and blue_, And drenches oft with _Manna_ dew Beds of hyacinth and roses, Where _many a cherub soft_ reposes. Doubtless this was the arrangement in the actual performance of the mask. 976. ~To the ocean~, etc. The resemblance of this song, in rhythm and rhyme, to the song of Ariel in the _Tempest_, v. 1. 88-94, has been frequently pointed out: "Where the bee sucks, there suck I," etc. Compare also the song
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