Come, gentle Venus! and assuage <br />A warring world, a bleeding age. <br />For nature lives beneath thy ray, <br />The wintry tempests haste away, <br />A lucid calm invests the sea, <br />Thy native deep is full of thee; <br />The flowering earth where'er you fly, <br />Is all o'er spring, all sun the sky; <br />A genial spirit warms the breeze, <br />Unseen among the blooming trees, <br />The feathered lovers tune their throat, <br />The desert growls a softened note, <br />Glad o'er the meads the cattle bound, <br />And love and harmony go round. <br />But chief into the human heart <br />You strike the dear delicious dart; <br />You teach us pleasing pangs to know, <br />To languish in luxurious woe, <br />To feel the generous passions rise, <br />Grow good by gazing; mild by sighs; <br />Each happy moment to improve, <br />And fill the perfect year with love. <br />Come, thou delight of heaven and earth! <br />To whom all creatures owe their birth; <br />Oh, come, sweet smiling! tender, come! <br />And yet prevent our final doom. <br />For long the furious god of war <br />Has crushed us with his iron car, <br />Has raged along our ruined plains, <br />Has soiled them with his cruel stains, <br />Has sunk our youth in endless sleep, <br />And made the widowed virgin weep. <br />Now let him feel thy wonted charms, <br />Oh, take him to thy twining arms! <br />And, while thy bosom heaves on his, <br />While deep he prints the humid kiss, <br />Ah, then! his stormy heart control, <br />And sigh thyself into his soul.<br /><br />James Thomson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-nuptial-song/
