Let all thy joys be as the month of May, And all thy days be as a marriage day.

In two balanced lines, Quarles offers a benediction in the idiom of seasonal and social festivity. “The month of May” conventionally signifies spring’s freshness, renewal, and abundance; a “marriage day” evokes public joy, communal blessing, and the hopeful inauguration of a new life. The couplet thus wishes not merely occasional happiness but a sustained condition: joys as perennial as springtime and days as celebratory as a wedding. The archaic “thy” gives the sentiment a prayer-like tone, aligning it with Quarles’s broader habit of moral and devotional counsel, where earthly delight is framed as something to be received gratefully and lived out consistently.