THE POET'S PRAISE OF HIS LOVE: IVE place, ye lovers, here before That spent your boasts and brags in vain! My lady's beauty passeth more The best of yours, I dare maintain, Than doth the sun the candle light, Or brightest day the darkest night. I could rehearse, if that I would, The whole effect of Nature's plaint, When she had lost the perfect mould, The like to which she could not paint; With wringing hands how she did cry! And what she said, I know it, I. I know she swore, with raging mind (Her kingdom only set apart), There was no loss by law of kind That could have gone so near her heart: And this was chiefly all her pain, She could not make the like again. Sith Nature thus gave her the praise, On your behalf might well be sought, SURREY. 1520-1547. HE THAT LOVES A ROSY CHEEK. SONG. E that loves a rosy cheek, Or a coral lip admires, Or from starlike eyes doth seek As old Time makes these decay, But a smooth and steadfast mind, CAREW. HUE AND CRY AFTER CHLORIS. ELL me, ye wandering spirits of the air, Did you not see a nymph more bright, more fair Than beauty's darling? or of looks more sweet Than stolen content? If such an one you meet, Wait on her hourly wheresoe'er she flies, And cry, and cry, Amyntor for her absence dies. Go, search the valleys:-pluck up every rose, Go, call the echoes to your aid, and cry, But stay awhile;-I have inform'd you ill: B Go, fly to heaven-examine every sphere, And try what star hath lately lighted there : If any brighter than the sun you see, Fall down, fall down and worship it-for that is she. WALLER? 1605-1687. SONNET ON A YOUNG LADY. MUST not grieve my love, whose eyes would read Lines of delight, whereon her youth Flowers have a time before they come to seed, DANIEL. 1562-1619. AND WOULD YOU SEE MY MISTRESS' FACE? ND would you see my mistress' face? Where knots of beauty have such grace It is a sweet, delicious morn, It is the heaven's bright reflex, Envy of whom doth world perplex. It is fair beauty's freshest youth, It is the feign'd Elysium's truth, The spring that winter'd hearts reneweth, And this is what my soul pursueth. THOMAS CAMPION. About 1612. |