’Twas ebbing darkness, past the noon of night: 
  And Phosphor, on the confines of the light, 120
  Promised the sun; ere day began to spring,
  The tuneful lark already stretch’d her wing,
  And flickering on her nest, made short essays to sing. 
  When wakeful Palamon, preventing day,
  Took to the royal lists his early way,
  To Venus at her fane, in her own house, to pray. 
  There, falling on his knees before her shrine,
  He thus implored with prayers her power divine: 

    Creator Venus, genial power of love,
  The bliss of men below, and gods above! 130
  Beneath the sliding sun thou runn’st thy race,
  Dost fairest shine, and best become thy place. 
  For thee the winds their eastern blasts forbear,
  Thy month reveals the spring, and opens all the year. 
  Thee, goddess! thee the storms of winter fly,
  Earth smiles with flowers renewing, laughs the sky,
  And birds to lays of love their tuneful notes apply. 
  For thee the lion loathes the taste of blood,
  And, roaring, hunts his female through the wood: 
  For thee the bulls rebellow through the groves, 140
  And tempt the stream, and snuff their absent loves. 
  ’Tis thine, whate’er is pleasant, good, or fair: 
  All nature is thy province, life thy care: 
  Thou madest the world, and dost the world repair. 
  Thou gladder of the mount of Cytheron,
  Increase of Jove, companion of the sun! 
  If e’er Adonis touch’d thy tender heart,
  Have pity, goddess, for thou know’st the smart! 
  Alas!  I have not words to tell my grief;
  To vent my sorrow would be some relief; 150
  Light sufferings give us leisure to complain;
  We groan, but cannot speak, in greater pain. 
  O goddess! tell thyself what I would say,
  Thou know’st it, and I feel too much to pray. 
  So grant my suit, as I enforce my might,
  In love to be thy champion, and thy knight;
  A servant to thy sex, a slave to thee,
  A foe profess’d to barren chastity. 
  Nor ask I fame or honour of the field,
  Nor choose I more to vanquish than to yield:  160
  In my divine Emilia make me blest;
  Let Fate, or partial Chance, dispose the rest: 
  Find thou the manner, and the means prepare;
  Possession, more than conquest, is my care. 
  Mars is the warrior’s god; in him it lies,
  On whom he favours to confer the prize;
  With smiling aspect you serenely move
  In your fifth orb, and rule the realm of love. 
  The Fates but only spin the coarser clue,
  The finest of the wool is left for you; 170
  Spare me but one small portion of the twine,
  And let the sisters cut below your line: 
  The rest among the rubbish may they sweep,
  Or add it to the yarn of some old miser’s heap. 
  But, if you this ambitious prayer deny,
  (A wish, I grant, beyond mortality,)
  Then let me sink beneath proud Arcite’s arms,
  And I once dead, let him possess her charms.