Marriage, the sacrament of love ....
From Epithalamion, by Edmund Spenser
When so ye come into those holy places,
  To humble your proud faces,
Bring her up to th' high altar that she may,
The sacred ceremonies there partake,
The which do endless matrimony make,
And let the roaring Organs loudly play ...

Never had man more joyfull day then this,
   Whom heaven would heape with bliss.
Make feast therefore now all this live long day,
This day for ever to me holy is,
Pour out the wine without restraint or stay,
Pour not by cups, but by the belly full,
   Pour out to all that will,
And sprinkle all the posts and walls with wine,
That they may sweat, and drunken be withall.
Crown ye God Bacchus with a coronal,
And Hymen also crown with wreaths of vine,
And let the Graces dance unto the rest; ...

Ah, when will this long weary day have end,
and lend me leave to come unto my love?
How slowly do the hours their numbers spend?
How slowly does sad Time his feathers move? ...
Long though it be, at last I see it gloome,
And the bright evening star with golden crest
   Appeare out of the East.
Faire childe of beauty, glorious lamp of lovve
That all the host of heaven in ranks dost lead,
And guidest lovers through the nights dread,
How cheerfully thou lookest from above,
And seemst to laugh atweene thy twinkling light
   As joying in the sight
Of these glad many which for joy doe sing,
That all the woods them answer and their echo ring. ...

NOW welcome night, thou night so long expected, ...
Spread thy broad wing over my love and me,
   that no man may us see,
And in thy sable mantle us enwrap,
From fear of peril and foul horror free.
Let no false treason seeke us to entrap,
Nor any dread disquiet once annoy
   the safety of our joy:
But let the night be calme and quietsome,
Without tempestuous storms or sad afray: ...

But let still Silence true night watches keepe,
That sacred peace may in assurance rayne,
And tymely sleep, when it is tyme to sleepe,
May pour his limbs forth on your pleasant plain,
The whiles an hundred little winged loves,
Like divers fethered doves,
Shall fly and flutter round about your bed,
And in the secret dark, that none reproves
Their pretty stealths shall work, & snares shall spread
To filch away sweet snatches of delight,
   Conceald through covert night.
Ye sons of Venus, play your sports at will,
For greedy pleasure, carelesse of your toys,
Thinks more upon her paradise of joyes,
Then what ye do, albe it good or ill.
All night therefore attend your merry play,
   For it will soone be day:
Now none doth hinder you, that say or sing,
Nor will the woods now answer, nor your Echo ring. ...
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