Classic Poem

This told, strange Teras touched her lute, and sung
This ditty, that the torchy evening sprung.

Epithalamion Teratos.

Come, come, dear Night, Love's mart of kisses,
Sweet close of his ambitious line,
The fruitful summer of his blisses;
Love's glory doth in darkness shine.

O! come, soft rest of cares, come, Night,
Come, naked Virtue's only tire,
The reaped harvest of the light,
Bound up in sheaves of sacred fire.
Love calls to war;
Sighs his alarms,
Lips his swords are,
The field his arms.

Come, Night, and lay thy velvet hand
On glorious Day's outfacing face;
And all thy crowned flames command,
For torches to our nuptial grace.
Love calls to war;
Sighs his alarms,
Lips his swords are,
The field his arms.

No need have we of factious Day,
To cast, in envy of thy peace,
Her balls of discord in thy way:
Here Beauty's day doth never cease;
Day is abstracted here,
And varied in a triple sphere.
Hero, Alcmane, Mya, so outshine thee,
Ere thou come here, let Thetis thrice refine thee.
Love calls to war;
Sighs his alarms,
Lips his swords are,
The field his arms.

The evening star I see:
Rise, youths, the evening star
Helps Love to summon war;
Both now embracing be.

Rise, youths, Love's rite claims more than banquets, rise:
Now the bright marigolds, that deck the skies,
Phoebus' celestial flowers, that, contrary
To his flowers here, ope when he shuts his eye,
And shut when he doth open, crown your sports.
Now Love in Night and Night in Love exhorts
Courtship and dances; all your parts employ,
And suit Night's rich expansure with your joy.
Love paints his longings in sweet virgins' eyes:
Rise, youths, Love's rite claims more than banquets, rise.
Rise, virgins, let fair nuptial loves enfold
Your fruitless breasts; the maidenheads ye hold
Are not your own alone, but parted are;
Part in disposing them your parents share,
And that a third part is; so must ye save
Your loves a third, and you your thirds must have.
Love paints his longings in sweet virgins' eyes:
Rise, youths, Love's rite claims more than banquets, rise.

Herewith the amorous spirit, that was so kind
To Teras' hair, and combed it down with wind,
Still as it, comet-like, brake from her brain,
Would needs have Teras gone, and did refrain
To blow it down; which, staring up, dismayed
The timorous feast; and she no longer stayed;
But, bowing to the bridegroom and the bride,
Did, like a shooting exhalation, glide
Out of their sights: the turning of her back
Made them all shriek, it looked so ghastly black.