Poetry

class="i2">Injures; it causeth time to stay;
The tables groan, as though this feast
Would, as the flood, destroy all fowl and beast.
And were the doctrine new
That the earth moved, this day would make it true;
For every part to dance and revel goes,
They tread the air, and fall not where they rose.
Though six hours since the sun to bed did part,
The masks and banquets will not yet impart
A sunset to these weary eyes, a centre to this heart.

IX

The Bride’s Going to Bed

What mean’st thou, bride, this company to keep?
To sit up, till thou fain wouldst sleep?
Thou mayst not, when thou’rt laid, do so;
Thyself must to him a new banquet grow;
And you must entertain
And do all this day’s dances o’er again.
Know that if sun and moon together do
Rise in one point, they do not set so too.
Therefore thou mayst, fair bride, to bed depart;
Thou art not gone, being gone; where’er thou art,
Thou leavest in him thy watchful eyes, in him thy loving heart.

X

The Bridegroom’s Coming

As he that sees a star fall, runs apace,
And finds a jelly in the place,
So doth the bridegroom haste as much,
Being told this star is fallen, and finds her such.
And as friends may look strange,
By a new fashion, or apparel’s change,
Their souls, though long acquainted they had been,
These clothes, their bodies, never yet had seen.
Therefore at first she modestly might start,
But must forthwith surrender every part,
As freely as each to each before gave either eye or heart.

XI

The Good-Night

Now, as in Tullia’s tomb, one lamp burnt clear,
Unchanged for fifteen hundred year,
May these love-lamps we here enshrine,
In warmth, light, lasting, equal the divine.
Fire ever doth aspire,
And makes all like itself, turns all to fire,
But ends in ashes; which these cannot do,
For none of these is fuel, but fire too.
This is joy’s bonfire, then, where love’s strong arts
Make of so noble individual parts
One fire of four inflaming eyes, and of two loving hearts.

Idios

As I have brought this song, that I may do
A perfect sacrifice, I’ll burn it too.

Allophanes

No, sir. This paper I have justly got,
For, in burnt incense, the perfume is not
His only that presents it, but of all;
Whatever celebrates this festival
Is common, since the joy thereof is so.
Nor may yourself be priest; but let me go
Back to the court, and I will lay it upon
Such altars, as prize your devotion.

Epithalamion Made at Lincoln’s Inn

The sunbeams in the east are spread;
Leave, leave, fair bride, your solitary bed;
No more shall you return to it alone;
It nurseth sadness, and your body’s print,
Like to a grave, the yielding down doth dint;
You, and your other you, meet there anon.
Put forth, put forth, that warm balm-breathing thigh,
Which when next time you in these sheets will smother,
There it must meet another,
Which never was, but must be, oft, more nigh.
Come glad from thence, go gladder than you came;
Today put on perfection, and a woman’s name.

Daughters of London, you which be
Our golden mines, and furnish’d treasury;
You which are angels, yet still bring with you
Thousands of angels on your marriage days;
Help with your presence, and devise to praise
These rites, which also unto you grow due;
Conceitedly dress her, and be assign’d
By you fit place for every flower and jewel;
Make her for love fit fuel,
As gay as Flora and as rich as Ind;
So may she, fair and rich, in nothing lame,
Today put on perfection, and a woman’s name.

And you frolic patricians,
Sons of those senators, wealth’s deep oceans;
Ye painted courtiers, barrels of other’s wits;
Ye countrymen, who but your beasts love none;
Ye of those fellowships, whereof he’s one,
Of study and play made strange hermaphrodites,
Here shine; this bridegroom to the temple bring.
Lo, in yon path which store of strew’d flowers graceth,
The sober virgin paceth;
Except my sight fail, ’tis no other thing.
Weep not, nor blush, here is no grief nor shame,
Today put on perfection, and a woman’s name.

Thy two-leaved gates, fair temple, unfold,
And these two in thy sacred bosom hold,
Till mystically join’d but one they be;
Then may thy lean and hunger-starvèd womb
Long time expect their bodies, and their tomb,
Long after their own parents fatten thee.
All elder claims, and all cold barrenness,
All yielding to new loves, be far forever,
Which might these two dissever;
Always, all th’other may each one possess;
For the best bride, best worthy of praise and fame,
Today puts on perfection, and a woman’s name.

Winter days bring much delight,
Not for themselves, but for they soon bring night;
Other sweets wait thee than these diverse meats,
Other disports than dancing jollities,
Other love-tricks than glancing with the eyes,
But that the sun still in our half sphere sweats;
He flies in winter, but he now stands still.
Yet shadows turn; noon point he hath attain’d;
His steeds will be restrain’d,
But gallop lively down the western hill.
Thou shalt, when he hath run the heaven’s half frame,
Tonight put on perfection, and a woman’s name.

The amorous evening star is rose,
Why then should not our amorous star enclose
Herself in her wish’d bed? Release your strings,
Musicians; and dancers take some truce
With these your pleasing labours, for great use
As much weariness as perfection brings.
You, and not only you, but all toil’d beasts
Rest duly; at night all their toils are dispensed;
But in their beds commenced
Are other labours, and more dainty feasts.
She goes a maid, who, lest she turn the same,
Tonight puts on perfection, and a woman’s name.

Thy virgin’s girdle now untie,
And in thy nuptial bed, love’s altar, lie
A pleasing sacrifice; now dispossess
Thee of these chains and robes, which were put on
To adorn the day, not thee; for thou, alone,
Like virtue and truth, art best in nakedness.
This bed is only to virginity
A grave, but to a better state, a cradle.
Till now thou wast but able
To be, what now thou art; then, that by thee
No more be said, “I may be,” but “I am,”
Tonight put on perfection, and a woman’s name.

Even like a faithful man content,
That this