Kneel then with me, fall worm-like on the ground,
And from th’infectious dunghill of this round,
From men’s brass wits and golden foolery,
Weep, weep your souls, into felicity.
Come to this house of mourning, serve the Night,
To whom pale Day (with whoredom soaked quite)
Is but a drudge, selling her beauty’s use
To rapes, adulteries, and to all abuse.
Her labours feast imperial Night with sports,
Where loves are Christmass’d, with all pleasure’s sorts;
And whom her fugitive and far-shot rays
Disjoin, and drive into ten thousand ways,
Night’s glorious mantle wraps in safe abodes,
And frees their necks from servile labour’s loads.
Her trusty shadows succour men dismayed,
Whom Day’s deceitful malice hath betrayed.
From the silk vapours of her ivory port,
Sweet Protean dreams she sends of every sort;
Some taking forms of princes, to persuade
Of men deject, we are their equals made;
Some clad in habit of deceased friends,
For whom we mourned, and now have wished amends;
And some (dear favour) lady-like attired,
With pride of beauty’s full meridian fired,
Who pity our contempts, revive our hearts;
For wisest ladies love the inward parts.
If these be dreams, even so are all things else,
That walk this round by heavenly sentinels:
But from Night’s port of horn she greets our eyes
With graver dreams inspired with prophecies,
Which oft presage to us succeeding chances,
We proving that awake, they show in trances.
If these seem likewise vain, or nothing are,
Vain things, or nothing, come to virtue’s share;
For nothing more than dreams with us she finds.
Then since all pleasures vanish like the winds,
And that most serious actions, not respecting
The second light, are worth but the neglecting;
Since day, or light, in any quality,
For earthly uses do but serve the eye;
And since the eye’s most quick and dangerous use
Enflames the heart, and learns the soul abuse;
Since mournings are preferred to banquetings,
And they reach heaven, bred under sorrow’s wings;
Since Night brings terror to our frailties still,
And shameless Day doth marble us in ill:
All you possessed with indepressed spirits,
Endued with nimble, and aspiring wits,
Come consecrate with me to sacred Night
Your whole endeavours, and detest the light.
Sweet Peace’s richest crown is made of stars,
Most certain guides of honoured mariners;
No pen can anything eternal write,
That is not steeped in humour of the Night.
Hence beasts and birds to caves and bushes then,
And welcome Night, ye noblest heirs of men;
Hence Phoebus to thy glassy strumpet’s bed,
And never more let Themis’ daughters spread
Thy golden harness on thy rosy horse,
But in close thickets run thy oblique course.
See now ascends the glorious bride of brides,
Nuptials, and triumphs, glittering by her sides;
Juno and Hymen do her train adorn,
Ten thousand torches round about them borne;
Dumb silence, mounted on the Cyprian star,
With becks rebukes the winds before his car,
Where she advanced; beats down with cloudy mace
The feeble light to black Saturn’s palace.
Behind her, with a brace of silver hinds,
In ivory chariot, swifter than the winds,
Is great Hyperion’s horned daughter drawn,
Enchantress-like decked in disparent lawn,
Circled with charms and incantations,
That ride huge spirits, and outrageous passions.
Music, and mood, she loves, but love she hates,
As curious ladies do their public cates.
This train, with meteors, comets, lightnings,
The dreadful presence of our empress sings:
Which grant for ever (o eternal Night)
Till virtue flourish in the light of light.
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