Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Elizabethan Verse. 1907.

Epithalamion Teratos

George Chapman (1559?–1634)

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 reapèd 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 crownèd 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, Myra, 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.