XVIII.

Now is my love all ready forth to come:
Let all the virgins therefore well awayt;
And ye fresh boyes, that tend upon her groome,
Prepare your selves; for he is coming strayt.
Set all your things in seemely good array
Fit for so joyfull day :

The joyfullst day that ever sunne did see.

Loe where she comes along with portly pace,
Lyke Phoebe from her chamber of the east,
Arysing forth to run her mighty race,
Clad all in white, that seems a virgin best,
So well it her beseemes, that
ye would weene
Some angell she had beene.

XVIII.

PROPRIUM mutat mea nupta limen :
Virgines, linguis tacitis favete!
Integrique O vos pueri, satelles
Turba mariti,

Ordine expectate virum parato,
Et diem justo celebrate cultu,
Lætior quâ non subit ulla claram
Luminis oram.

En ut incessu graditur severo
Illa, lætantûm comitata cœtu!
Qualis emensura polum diurnis
Cursibus Eos

Deserit splendens thalamum, propinquat Candidum velamen amicta virgo:

Cœlitum credas aliquam relicto

Fulgere Olympo;

E

Her long loose yellow locks lyke golden wyre,

Sprinckled with perle, and perling flowres atweene,

Doe lyke a golden mantle her attyre;

And being crowned with a girland greene,
Seem lyke some mayden queene.

Her modest eyes, abashed to behold
So many gazers as on her do stare,
Upon the lowly ground affixed are;
Ne dare lift up her countenance too bold,
But blush to hear her prayses sung so loud,
So farre from being proude.

Nathlesse doe ye still loud her prayses sing,

That all the woods may answer, and your eccho ring.

SPENSER, Epithalamium.

Sic sinus castam decuere formam :
Aureique instar fluit involucri

Flava cervicem coma per venustam,
Aurea fila

Crinium tractu referens: et inter
Vitreo fulsere colore gemmæ,

Atque gemmantûm redolet per omnem
Copia florum.

Quin premunt frondes caput, ut corolla
Principem pagi viridis puellam ;
Lumen at defixa solo pudicum
Illa virorum

Fugit adversos oculos; suasque
Audiens laudes rubuit dicari,

Quas tot ingenti pueri et puellæ
Voce celebrent.

Sic malo mentis caret illa fastu:
Ne tamen clarum reticete carmen,

Donec a sylvâ referatur omni

Vocis imago.

XIX.

LAUS ELEPHANTI.

(Versiculi aliquot carminis in feras hominum arte domitas conscripti.)

AT neque montanas acuens vis ignea tigres,
Nec tibi cornipedum certaret robur equorum
Laude, Elephas memorande; tibi prædator agrestis
Cedit aper, rabidique assurgunt jure leones.
Grandia enim quoties moliris pondera crurum,
Plantâque immani terram premis, intremere omnis
Visus ager, longumque dedit sylva ima fragorem.
Nescio quem montem turritis ire columnis
Aut Rhodium credas lucos habitare Colosson,
Tantâ mole gigas collisam proterit herbam!
Ille tamen captus nostro non defuit usu:
Tædia seu patitur, vestitus murice dorsum,
Dura viæ, stimuloque aurigæ pungitur acri :
Seu docilis movet ignaros in retia fratres