All you that love! or loved before!
The Fairy Queen PROSERPINA
Bids you increase that loving humour more!
They that have not yet fed
On delight amorous;
She vows that they shall lead
Apes in Avernus.
Canto secundo.
What fair pomp have I spied of glittering Ladies;
With locks sparkled abroad, and rosy coronet
On their ivory brows, trackt to the dainty thighs
With robes like Amazons, blue as violet,
With gold aiglets adorned, some in a changeable
Pale; with spangs wavering taught to be movable.
Then those Knights that afar off with dolorous viewing, Cast their eyes hitherward: lo, in an agony All unbraced, cry aloud, their heavy state rueing: Moist cheeks with blubbering, painted as ebony Black; their feltred hair torn with wrathful hand: And whiles astonied, stark in a maze they stand.
But hark! what merry sound! what sudden harmony! Look! look near the grove! where the Ladies do tread With their Knights the measures weighed by the melody Wantons! whose traversing make men enamoured; Now they fain an honour, now by the slender waist He must her aloft, and seal a kiss in haste. </poem>
