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Bridegroom. NOW rests my love: till now her tender brest, | |
| Wanting her joy, could finde no peace, no rest; | |
| I charge you all, by the true love you beare | |
| To friendship, or what else you count most deare, | |
| Disturbe her not, but let her sleep her fill: | 5 |
| I charge you all upon your lives be still. | |
| O may that labouring soule that lives opprest | |
| For me, in me receive eternall rest. | |
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| What curious face is this? what mortall birth | |
| Can shew a beauty thus unstain’d with earth! | 10 |
| What glorious angell wanders there alone, | |
| From earth’s foule dungeon, to my father’s throne! | |
| It is my love; my love that hath deny’d | |
| The world for me, it is my fairest bride; | |
| How fragrant is her breath! how heavenly faire | 15 |
| Her angel face! each glorifying the ayre. | |
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Bride. O how I’m ravisht with eternall blisse! | |
| Whoe’r thought heaven a joy compar’d to this? | |
| How doe the pleasures of this glorious face | |
| Adde glory to the glory of his place! | 20 |
| See how kings’ courts surmount poore shepheards’ cels, | |
| So this the pride of Salomon excels; | |
| Rich wreathes of glory crowne his royall head, | |
| And troopes of angels waite upon his bed. | |
| |
| The court of princely Salomon was guarded | 25 |
| With able men at armes; their faith rewarded | |
| With fading honours, subject to the fate | |
| Of fortune, and the jealous frownes of state: | |
| But here the harmonious quire of heaven attend, | |
| Whose prize is glory, glory without end, | 30 |
| Vnmixt with doubtings or denegerous feare— | |
| A greater prince than Salomon is here. | |
| |
| The bridall bed of princely Salomon, | |
| Whose beauty amaz’d the greedy lookers on, | |
| Which all the world admired to behold, | 35 |
| Was but of cedar, and her sted of gold, | |
| Her pillars silver, and her canopie | |
| Of silkes, but richly stain’d with purple die, | |
| Her curtaines wrought in workes, workes rarely led | |
| By th’ needles’ art: such was the bridall bed. | 40 |
| |
| Such was the bridall bed, which time, or age, | |
| Durst never warrant from th’ approbrious rage | |
| Of envious fate, earth’s measures but a minute; | |
| Earth fades, all fades upon it, all within it; | |
| O but the glory of thy divined place | 45 |
| No age can injure, nor yet time deface; | |
| Too weak an object for weake eyes to bide, | |
| Or tongues t’ expresse: who ever saw’t but dy’d. | |
| |
| Whoe’r beheld the royall crown set on | |
| The nuptiall browes of princely Salomon? | 50 |
| His glorious pompe whose honour did display | |
| The noysed triumphs of his marriage-day: | |
| A greater prince than Salomon is here, | |
| The beauty of whose nuptials shall appeare | |
| More glorious, farre transcending his, as farre | 55 |
| As heaven’s bright lamp outshines th’ obscurest star. | |
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