Come, come, dear Night! Love's mart of kisses,

      Sweet close to 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, 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,

      Phœbus' celestial flowers, that, contrary

      To his flowers here, ope when he shuts his eye,

      And shuts 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 maidenheads110 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 comb'd 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, staring111 up, dismay'd

      The timorous feast; and she no longer stay'd;

      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 look'd so ghastly black.

      O hapless Hero! that most hapless cloud

      Thy soon-succeeding tragedy foreshow'd.

      Thus all the nuptial crew to joys depart;

      But much-wronged112 Hero stood Hell's blackest dart:

      Whose wound because I grieve so to display,

      I use digressions thus t' increase the day.

      Leucote flies to all the Winds,

      And from the Fates their outrage blinds,113

      That Hero and her love may meet.

      Leander, with Love's complete fleet