Classic Poem

The day is curled about again
To view the splendour she was in,
When first with hallowed hands
The holy man knit the mysterious bands;
When you two your contracted souls did move,
Like cherubims above,
And did make love,
As your un-understanding issue now,
In a glad sigh, a smile, a tear, a vow.

Tell me, O self-reviving Sun,
In thy peregrination
Hast thou beheld a pair
Twist their soft beams like these in their chaste air?
As from bright numberless embracing rays
Are sprung th' industrious days,
So when they gaze,
And change their fertile eyes with the new morn,
A beauteous offspring is shot forth, not born.

Be witness then, all-seeing Sun,
Old spy, thou that thy race hast run
In full five thousand rings;
To thee were ever purer offerings
Sent on the wings of faiths? And thou, O Night!
Curtain of their delight,
By these made bright,
Have you not markèd their celestial play,
And no more peeked the gaieties of day?

Come then, pale virgins, roses strew,
Mingled with Io's, as you go;
The snowy ox is killed,
The fane with pros'lyte lads and lasses filled;
You too may hope the same seraphic joy
Old Time cannot destroy,
Nor fulness cloy,
When, like these, you shall stamp by sympathies
Thousands of new-born loves with your chaste eyes.