PUERPERIUM.[1]
Reading edition
PUERPERIUM.[1]
1 You gods that have the power To trouble and compose All that's beneath your bower, Calm silence on the seas, on earth impose.
2 Fair Venus! in thy soft arms The God of Rage confine; For thy whispers are the charms Which only can divert his fierce design.
3 What though he frown, and to tumult do incline? Thou the flame Kindled in his breast canst tame, With that snow which unmelted lies on thine.
4 Great goddess! give this thy sacred island rest; Make heaven smile, That no storm disturb us while Thy chief care, our halcyon, builds her nest.
5 Great Gloriana! fair Gloriana! Bright as high heaven is, and fertile as earth, Whose beauty relieves us, Whose royal bed gives us Both glory and peace, Our present joy, and all our hopes' increase.
[1] 'Puerperium ': Fenton conjectures that this poem was written in 1640, when the Queen was delivered of her fourth son, the Duke of Gloucester.