Or sweet as is that gum
Doth from Panchaia come.
Teach nature now to know
Lips can make cherries grow
Sooner than she ever yet
In her wisdom could beget.
XVI.
On your minutes, hours, days, months, years,
Drop the fat blessing of the spheres.
That good which heav'n can give
To make you bravely live
Fall like a spangling dew
By day and night on you.
May fortune's lily-hand
Open at your command;
With all lucky birds to side
With the bridegroom and the bride.
XVII.
Let bounteous Fate[s] your spindles full
Fill, and wind up with whitest wool.
Let them not cut the thread
Of life until ye bid.
May death yet come at last,
And not with desp'rate haste,
But when ye both can say
"Come, let us now away,"
Be ye to the barn then borne,
Two, like two ripe shocks of corn.
Domiduca, Juno, the goddess of marriage, the "home-bringer".
Reaks, pranks.
Barley-break, a country game, see 101.
Panchaia, the land of spices: cf, Virg. G. ii. 139; Æn. iv. 379.
