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The Works in Verse and Prose

(including hitherto unpublished Mss.) of Sir John Davies: for the first time collected and edited: With memorial-introductions and notes: By the Rev. Alexander B. Grosart. In three volumes

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PART OF AN ELEGIE IN PRAISE OF MARRIAGE.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


451

PART OF AN ELEGIE IN PRAISE OF MARRIAGE.

When the first man from Paradise was driven,
Hee did from thence his onely comfort beare:
Hee still enioyes his wife, which God had giuen,
Though hee from other joyes deuorced were.
This cordiall comfort of societye,
This trueloue knott, that tyes the heart and will,
When man was in th'extremest miserye
To keepe his heart from breakinge, existed still
There is a tale [when] then the world beganne,
Both sex in one body did remaine:
Till Joue, offended with that double man
Caused Vulcan to divide him into twayne.
In this diuision, hee the hart did seuer,
But cunningly hee did indent the heart,
That if they should be reunited euer,
Each part might knowe which was the counterpart
Since when, all men and woman thinke it longe
Each of them their other part haue mett:

452

Sometimes the[y] meete ye right, some times ye wrong
This discontent, and that doth ioy begett.
It ioye begetts in there indented harts,
When like indentures they are matcht aright:
Each part to other mutuall joy imparts,
And thus the man which Vulcan did deuide,
Is nowe againe by Hymen made entire,
And all the ruine is ræedified,
Two beeinge made one by their diuine desire.
Sweete marriage is the honny neuer cloyinge,
The tune, which beinge still plaid, doth euer please,
The pleasure which is vertue's in inioyinge.
It is the band of peace and yoake of ease,
It is a yoake, but sweete [and] light it is;
The fellowship doth take away the trouble,
For euery greife is made halfe lesse by this,
And euery ioy is by reflection double.
It is a band, but one of loue's sweete bands,
Such as hee binds the world's great parts withall:
Whose wonderous frame by there convention stands
But beinge disbanded would to ruine fall.