Ah! when will this long weary day have end,
And lend me leave to come unto my love?
How slowly do the hours their numbers spend ;
How slowly does sad Time his feathers move!
Haste thee, O fairest Planet! to thy home
Within the Western foam:

Thy tiréd steeds long since have need of rest!
Long though it be, at last I see it gloom,
And the bright evening star with golden crest
Appear out of the East.

Fair child of beauty! glorious lamp of love!
That all the host of heaven in ranks dost lead,
And guidest lovers through the night's sad dread,
How cheerfully thou lookest from above,

And seem'st to laugh atween thy twinkling light,
As joying in the sight

Of these glad many, which for joy do sing,

That all the woods them answer, and their echo ring!

Now cease, ye Damsels, your delights forepast!
Enough is it that all the day was yours:
Now day is done, and night is nighing fast,
Now bring the Bride into the bridal bowers.
The night is come, now soon her disarray,
And in her bed her lay;

Lay her in lilies and in violets,

And silken curtains over her display,
And odoured sheets, and Arras coverlets.
Behold how goodly my fair love does lie
In proud humility!

Like unto Maia, when as Jove her took
In Tempe, lying on the flowery grass
'Twixt sleep and wake, after she weary was

With bathing in the Acidalian brook!
Now it is night, ye Damsels may be gone;
And leave my love alone;

And leave likewise your former lay to sing :

The woods no more shall answer, nor your echo ring.

Now welcome, Night! thou Night so long expected,
That long day's labour dost at last defray,
And all my cares, which cruel love collected,
Hast summed in one, and cancelled for aye!
Spread thy broad wing over my love and me,
That no man may us see;

And in thy sable mantle us enwrap,
From fear of peril and foul horror free.

Let no false treason seek us to entrap,
Nor any dread disquiet once annoy
The safety of our joy;

But let the night be calm and quietsome,
Without tempestuous storms or sad affray :
Like as when Jove with fair Alcmena lay,
When he begot the great Tirynthian groom:
Or like as when he with thyself did lie,
And begot Majesty.

And let the maids and young men cease to sing ;
Ne let the woods them answer, nor their echo ring.

Let no lamenting cries nor doleful tears

Be heard all night within, nor yet without;
Ne let false whispers, breeding hidden fears,
Break gentle sleep with misconceived doubt.
Let no deluding dreams, nor dreadful sights,
Make sudden sad affrights,

Ne let housefires, nor lightning's helpless harms;
Ne let the Pouke, nor other evil sprites,
Ne let mischievous witches with their charms,
Ne let hobgoblins, names whose sense we see not,
Fray us with things that be not!

Let not the shriek-owl, nor the stork, be heard ;
Nor the night raven, that still deadly yells;
Nor damnéd ghosts, called up with mighty spells,
Nor grisly vultures make us once affeared!

Ne let the unpleasant choir of frogs still croaking
Make us to wish their choking!

Let none of these their dreary accents sing;

Ne let the woods them answer, nor their echo ring.

But let still Silence true night-watches keep,

That sacred peace may in assurance reign,
And timely Sleep, when it is time to sleep,

May pour his limbs forth on your pleasant plain ;
The whiles an hundred little winged Loves,

Like divers feathered doves,

Shall fly and flutter round about the bed,

And in the secret dark, that none reproves,

Their pretty stealths shall work, and snares shall spread To filch away sweet snatches of delight,

Concealed through covert night.

Ye sons of Venus, play your sports at will;

For greedy Pleasure, careless of your toys,
Thinks more upon her paradise of joys,
Then what ye do, albeit good or ill!

All night therefore attend your merry play,
For it will soon be day :

Now none doth hinder you, that say or sing;

Ne will the woods now answer, nor your echo ring.

Who is the same, which at my window peeps,
Or whose is that fair face that shines so bright?

Is it not Cynthia, she that never sleeps,

But walks about high heaven all the night?

O fairest goddess! do thou not envý

My love with me to spy;

For thou likewise didst love, though now unthought,

And for a fleece of wool, which privily

The Latmian shepherd once unto thee brought,

His pleasures with thee wrought!

Therefore to us be favourable now;

And sith of women's labours thou hast charge,

And generation goodly dost enlarge,
Incline thy will t' effect our wishful vow,

And the chaste womb inform with timely seed,
That may our comfort breed:

Till which we cease our hopeful hap to sing,
Ne let the woods us answer, nor our echo ring.

And thou, great Juno, which with awful might
The laws of wedlock still dost patronise,
And the religion of the faith first plight
With sacred rights hast taught to solemnise,
And eke for comfort often called art
Of women in their smart:

Eternally bind thou this lovely band,
And all thy blessings unto us impart !

And thou, glad Genius, in whose gentle hand
The bridal bower and genial bed remain

Without blemish or stain,

And the sweet pleasures of their love's delight
With secret aid dost succour and supply,
Till they bring forth the fruitful progeny :
Send us the timely fruit of this same night!
And thou, fair Hebe, and thou, Hymen free,
Grant that it may so be!

Till which we cease your further praise to sing,
Ne any woods shall answer, nor your echo ring.

And ye high Heavens, the temple of the Gods,
In which a thousand torches flaming bright
Do burn, that to us wretched earthly clods
In dreadful darkness lend desired light;

G

And all ye Powers which in the same remain,
More than we men can feign :

Pour out your blessing on us plenteously,
And happy influence upon us rain,

That we may raise a large posterity,

Which from the earth, which they may long possess

With lasting happiness,

Up to your haughty palaces may mount:

And, for the guerdon, of their glorious merit,
May heavenly tabernacles there inherit,

Of blessed Saints, for to increase the count !
So let us rest, sweet love, in hope of this,
And cease till then our timely joys to sing-
The woods no more us answer, nor our echo ring.

Song! made in lieu of many ornaments,
With which my love should duly have been decked,
Which cutting off through hasty accidents,
Ye would not stay your due time to expect,
But promised both to recompense :

Be unto her a goodly ornament,

And for short time an endless monument.

Edmund Spenser

77

PROTHALAMION

CALM was the day, and through the trembling air
Sweet breathing Zephyrus did softly play,

A gentle spirit that lightly did delay

Hot Titan's beams, which then did glister fair;
When I, whom sullen care,

Through discontent of my long fruitless stay

In Prince's court, and expectation vain

Of idle hopes, which still do fly away

Like empty shadows, did afflict my brain,
Walked forth to ease my pain

Along the shore of silver-streaming Thames;
Whose rutty bank, the which his river hems,
Was painted all with variable flowers,
And all the meads adorned with dainty gems
Fit to deck maidens' bowers,

And crown their paramours

Against the bridal day, which is not long :

Sweet Thames! run softly, till I end my song.

There, in a meadow by the river's side,
A flock of Nymphs I chanced to espy,
All lovely daughters of the Flood thereby,
With goodly greenish locks, all loose untied,
As each had been a bride;

And each one had a little wicker basket,
Made of fine twigs, entrailéd curiously,

In which they gathered flowers to fill their flasket,
And with fine fingers cropped full featously

The tender stalks on high.

Of every sort which in that meadow grew

They gathered some: the violet, pallid blue,
The little daisy that at evening closes,

The virgin lily, and the primrose true,
With store of vermeil roses,

To deck their bridegrooms' posies

Against the bridal day, which was not long:
Sweet Thames! run softly, till I end my song.

With that I saw two swans of goodly hue
Come softly swimming down along the lea;
Two fairer birds I yet did never see:

The snow, which doth the top of Pindus strew,
Did never whiter shew,

Nor Jove himself, when he a swan would be
For love of Leda, whiter did appear;

Yet Leda was, they say, as white as he,

Yet not so white as these, nor nothing near:

So purely white they were,

That even the gentle stream, the which them bare,
Seemed foul to them, and bade his billows spare

To wet their silken feathers, lest they might

Soil their fair plumes with water not so fair,
And mar their beauties bright,

That shone as heaven's light

Against their bridal day, which was not long;
Sweet Thames! run softly, till I end my song.

Eftsoons the Nymphs, which now had flowers their fill,
Ran all in haste to see that silver brood,

As they came floating on the crystal flood;

Whom when they saw, they stood amazed still,

Their wond'ring eyes to fill:

Them seemed they never saw a sight so fair,
Of fowls so lovely that they sure did deem
Them heavenly born, or to be that same pair
Which through the sky draw Venus' silver team;