Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/156

 EDMUND SPENSER

Now is my love all ready forth to come:

Let all the virgins therefore well awayt.

And ye fresh boyes, that tend upon her groomc,

Prepare your selves; for he is comming strayt.

Set all your things in seemcly good aray,

Fit for so joy full day:

The joyfulst day that ever sunne did sec.

Fa ire Sun' shew forth thy favourable ray,

And let thy lifull heat not fervent be,

For feare of burning her sunshyny face,

Her beauty to disgrace.

O fayrest Phoebus* father of the Muse^

If ever I did honour thee aright,

Or sing the thing that mote thy mind delight,

Doe not thy servants simple boonc refuse;

But let this day, let this one day, be myne;

Let all the rest be thine.

Then I thy soverayne prayscs loud wil sing,

That all the woods shal answer, and thcyr cccho ring.

Harke 1 ' how the Minstrils gin to shrill aloud

Their merry Musick that resounds from far,

The pipe, the tabor, and the trembling Croud,

That well agree withoutcn breach or jar.

But, most of all, the Damzels doc delite

When they their tymbrels smyte,

And thereunto doc daunce and carrol sweet,

That all the sences they doc ravish quite,

The whyles the boycs run up and downe the street,

Crying aloud with strong confused noyce,

As if it were one voyce,

croud] violin.

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