Blacke is the beauty of the brightest day

Blacke is the beauty of the brightest day,

The golden balle of heauen’s eternal fire,

That danc’d with glorie on the siluer waues:

Now wants the fewell that enflamde his beames

And all with faintnesse and for foule disgrace,

He bindes his temples with a frowning cloude,

Ready to darken earth with endlesse night:

Zenocrate that gaue him light and life,

Whose eies shot fire from their Iuory bowers,

And tempered euery soule with liuely heat,

Now by the malice of the angry Skies,

Whose icalousie admits no second Mate,

Drawes in the comfort of her latest breath

All dasled with the hellish mists of death.

Now walk the angels on the walles of heauen,

As Centinels to warne th’ immortall soules,

To entertaine deuine Zenocrate.

Apollo, Cynthia, and the ceaselesse lamps

That gently look’d vpon this loathsome earth,

Shine downwards now no more, but deck the heauens

To entertaine diuine Zenocrate.

The chrystall springs whose taste illuminates

Refined eies with an eternall sight,

Like tried siluer runs through Paradice

To entertaine diuine Zenocrate.

The Cherubins and holy Seraphins

That sing and play before the King of Kings,

Vse all their voices and their instruments

To entertaine diuine Zenocrate.

CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE,
Tamburlaine, Act 2, Scaena ultima.