Now all is done: bring home the Bride again; Bring home the triumph of our victory: Bring home with you the glory of her gain, With joyance bring her and with jollity. Never had man more joyful day than this, Whom heaven would heap with bliss. Make feast therefore now all this live-long day; This day for ever to me holy is. Pour out the wine without restraint or stay, Pour not by cups, but by the bellyful! Pour out to all that wull, And sprinkle all the posts and walls with wine, That they may sweat, and drunken be withal. Crown ye God Bacchus with a coronal, And Hymen also crown with wreaths of vine; And let the Graces dance unto the rest, For they can do it best: The whiles the maidens do their carol sing, To which the woods shall answer, and their echo ring. Ring ye the bells, ye young men of the town, And leave your wonted labours for this day: This day is holy; do ye write it down, That ye for ever it remember may. This day the sun is in his chiefest height, With Barnaby the bright, From whence declining daily by degrees, He somewhat loseth of his heat and light, When once the Crab behind his back he sees. But for this time it ill ordained was, To choose the longest day in all the year, And shortest night, when longest fitter were: Yet never day so long, but late would pass. Ring ye the bells, to make it wear away, And bonfires make all day; And dance about them, and about them sing, That all the woods may answer, and your echo ring! Ah! when will this long weary day have end, And lend me leave to come unto my love? How slowly do the hours their numbers spend; How slowly does sad Time his feathers move! Haste thee, O fairest Planet, to thy home, Within the Western foam: Thy tired steeds long since have need of rest. Long though it be, at last I see it gloom, And the bright evening-star with golden crest Appear out of the East, Fair child of beauty! glorious lamp of love! That all the host of heaven in ranks dost lead, And guidest lovers through the night’s sad dread, How cheerfully thou lookest from above, And seem’st to laugh atween thy twinkling light, As joying in the sight Of these glad many, which for joy do sing, That all the woods them answer, and their echo ring!