Sir Edward Dyer (1543-1607). Helen's Epithalamium. William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. 1907. The Book of Elizabethan Verse

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

Helen’s Epithalamium

By Sir Edward Dyer (1543–1607)


LIKE as the rising morning shows a grateful lightening,
When sacred night is past and winter now lets loose the spring,
So glittering Helen showed among the maids, lusty and tall,
As is the furrow in a field that far outstretcheth all,
Or in a garden is a Cypress tree, or in a trace	5
A steed of Thessaly, so she to Sparta was a grace,
No damsel with such works as she her baskets used to fill,
Nor in diverse coloured web a woof of greater skill
Doth cut from off the loom: nor hath such songs and lays
Unto her dainty harp, in Dian’s and Minerva’s praise,	10
As Helen hath, in whose bright eyes all Loves and Graces be.
O fair, O lovely maid, a matron now is made of thee;
But we will every spring unto the leaves in meadows go
To gather garlands sweet, and there not with a little woe,
Will often think of thee, O Helen, as the suckling lambs	15
Desire the strouting bags and presence of their tender dams;
We all betimes for thee a wreath of Melitoe will knit,
And on a shady plane for thee will safely fasten it,
And all betimes for thee, under a shady plane below,
Out of a silver box the sweetest ointment will bestow,	20
And letters shall be written in the bark that men may see
And read, Do humble reverence, for I am Helen’s tree.