Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/154

 EDMUND SPENSER

For feare the stones her tender foot should wrong,

Be strewed with fragrant flowers all along,

And diapred lyke the discolored mead.

Which done, doe at her chamber dore awayt,

For she will waken strayt;

The whiles doe ye this song unto her sing,

The woods shall to you answer, and your Eccho ring.

Ye Nymphes of Mulla, which with carefull heed

The silver scaly trouts doe tend full well,

And greedy pikes which use therein to feed;

(Those trouts and pikes all others doo cxcell;)

And ye likewise, which keepe the rushy lake,

Where none doo fishes take;

Bynd up the locks the which hang scattcrd light,

And in his waters, which your mirror make,

Behold your faces as the christall bright,

That when you come whereas my love doth lie,

No blemish t>he may spie.

And eke, ye lightfoot mayds, which keepe the deere,

That on the hoary mountayne used to towre,

And the wylde wolves, which scekc them to devoure,

With your steele darts doo chace from commmg neer;

Be albo present heerc,

To hclpe to decke her, and to help to sing,

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

Wake now, my love, awake 1 for it is time;

The Rosy Morne long since left Tithoncs bed,

All ready to her silver coche to clyme;

And Phoebus gins to shew his glorious hed.

Hark' how the cheerefull birds do chaunt theyr laies

And carroll of Loves praise.

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