rple mantles known
Like the proud virgins of the year
As if the spring were all your own,--
What are you, when the Rose is blown?

You curious chanters of the wood
That warble forth dame Nature's lays,
Thinking your passions understood
By your weak accents; what's your praise
When Philomel her voice doth raise?

So, when my Mistress shall be seen
In sweetness of her looks and mind,
By virtue first, then choice, a Queen,
Tell me, if she were not design'd
Th' eclipse and glory of her kind?

SIR H. WOTTON.

85. TO THE LADY MARGARET LEY.

Daughter to that good earl, once President
Of England's council and her treasury,
Who lived in both, unstain'd with gold or fee,
And left them both, more in himself content.

Till the sad breaking of that parliament
Broke him, as that dishonest victory
At Chaeronia, fatal to liberty,
Kill'd with report that old man eloquent;--

Though later born than to have known the days
Wherein your father flourish'd, yet by you,
Madam, methinks I see him living yet;

So well your words his noble virtues praise,
That all both judge you to relate them true,
And to possess them, honour'd Margaret.

J. MILTON.

86. THE LOVELINESS OF LOVE.

It is not Beauty I demand,
A crystal brow, the moon's despair,
Nor the snow's daughter, a white hand,
Nor mermaid's yellow pride of hair:

Tell me not of your starry eyes,
Your lips that seem on roses fed,
Your breasts, where Cupid tumbling lies,
Nor sleeps for kissing of his bed:--

A bloomy pair of vermeil cheeks
Like Hebe's in her ruddiest hours,
A breath that softer music speaks
Than summer winds a-wooing flowers,

These are but gauds: nay what are lips?
Coral beneath the ocean-stream,
Whose brink when your adventurer slips
Full oft he perisheth on them.

And what are cheeks, but ensigns oft
That wave hot youth to fields of blood?
Did Helen's breast, though ne'er so soft,
Do Greece or Ilium any good?

Eyes can with baleful ardour burn;
Poison can breathe, that erst perfumed;
There's many a white hand holds an urn
With lovers hearts to dust consumed.

For crystal brows there's nought within;
They are but empty cells for pride;