TO ALL VERTUOUS LADIES IN GENERALL by AEMILIA (BASSANO) LANYER

Each blessed Lady that in Virtue spends
Your pretious time to beautifie your soules;
Come wait on hir whom winged Fame attends
And in hir hand the Booke where she inroules
Those high deserts that Majestie commends:
Let this faire Queene not unattended bee,
When in my Glasse she daines her selfe to see.

Put on your wedding garments every one,
The Bridegroome stayes to entertaine you all;
Let Virtue be your guide, for she alone
Can leade you right that you can never fall;
And make no stay for feare he should be gone:
But fill your Lamps with oyle of burning zeale,
That to your Faith he may his Truth reveale.

Let all your roabes be purple scarlet white,
Those perfit colours purest Virtue wore,
Come deckt with Lillies that did so delight
To be preferr'd in Beauty, farre before
Wise @3Salomon@1 in all his glory dight:
Whose royall roabes did no such pleasure yield,
As did the beauteous Lilly of the field.

Adorne your temples with faire @3Daphnes@1 crowne,
The never changing Laurel, alwaies greene;
Let constant hope all worldly pleasures drowne,
In wise @3Minervaes@1 paths be alwaies seene;
Or with bright @3Cynthia@1, thogh faire @3Venus@1 frown:
With @3Esop@1 crosse the posts of every doore,
Where Sinne would riot, making Virtue poore.

And let the Muses your companions be,
Those sacred sisters that on @3Pallas@1 wait;
Whose Virtues with the purest minds agree,
Whose godly labours doe avoyd the baite
Of worldly pleasures, living alwaies free
From sword, from violence, and from ill report,
To these nine Worthies all faire mindes resort.

Annoynt your haire with @3Aarons@1 pretious oyle,
And bring your palmes of vict'ry in your hands,
To overcome all thoughts that would defile
The earthly circuit of your soules faire lands;
Let no dimme shadowes your cleare eyes beguile:
Sweet odours, mirrhe, gum, aloes, frankincense,
Present that King who di'd for your offence.

Behold, bright @3Titans@1 shining chariot staies,
All deckt with flowers of the freshest hew,
Attended on by Age, Houres, Nights, and Daies,
Which alters not your beauty, but gives you
Much more, and crownes you with eternall praise:
This golden chariot wherein you must ride,
Let simple Doves, and subtill serpents guide.

Come swifter than the motion of the Sunne,
To be transfigur'd with our loving Lord,
Lest Glory end what Grace in you begun,
Of heav'nly riches make your greatest hoord,
In Christ all honour, wealth, and beautie's wonne:
By whose perfections you appeare more faire
Than @3Phoebus@1, if he seav'n times brighter were.

God's holy Angels will direct your Doves,
And bring your Serpents to the fields of rest,
Where he doth stay that purchast all your loves
In bloody torments, when he di'd opprest,
There shall you find him in those pleasant groves
Of sweet @3Elizium@1, by the Well of Life,
Whose cristal springs do purge from worldly strife

Thus may you flie from dull and sensuall earth,
Whereof at first your bodies formed were,
That new regen'rate in a second berth,
Your blessed soules may live without all feare,
Beeing immortall, subject to no death:
But in the eie of heaven so highly placed,
That others by your virtues may be graced.

Where worthy Ladies I will leave you all,
Desiring you to grace this little Booke;
Yet some of you me thinkes I heare to call
Me by my name, and bid me better looke,
Lest unawares I in an error fall:
In generall tearmes, to place you with the rest,
Whom Fame commends to be the very best.

Tis true, I must confesse (O noble Fame)
There are a number honoured by thee,
Of which, some few thou didst recite by name,
And willd my Muse they should remembred bee;
Wishing some would their glorious Trophies frame:
Which if I should presume to undertake,
My tired Hand for very feare would quake.

Onely by name I will bid some of those,
That in true Honors seate have long bin placed,
Yea even such as thou hast chiefly chose,
By whom my Muse may be the better graced;
Therefore, unwilling longer time to lose,
I will invite some Ladies that I know,
But chiefly those as thou hast graced so.

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