Whose body other ladies well might bear
As soul,—yea, which it profanation were
For all but you to take as fleshy woof,
Being spirit truest proof.
Whose form is as a grove
Hushed with the cooing of an unseen dove.
Gratior ac pulchro veniens in corpore virtus.
Even virtue is fairer when it appears in a beautiful person.
Nimium ne crede colori.
Trust not too much to beauty.
And as pale sickness does invade
Your frailer part, the breaches made
In that fair lodging still more clear
Make the bright guest, your soul, appear.
Elysian beauty, melancholy grace,
Brought from a pensive, though a happy place.
Her eyes as stars of Twilight fair,
Like Twilight's, too, her dusky hair,
But all things else about her drawn
From May-time and the cheerful Dawn.
Alas! how little can a moment show
Of an eye where feeling plays
In ten thousand dewy rays;
A face o'er which a thousand shadows go!
True beauty dwells in deep retreats,
Whose veil is unremoved
Till heart with heart in concord beats,
And the lover is beloved.
What's female beauty, but an air divine,
Through which the mind's all-gentle graces shine!
They, like the Sun, irradiate all between;
The body charms, because the soul is seen.
BED
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John,
The bed be blest that I lye on.
Theatre des ris et des pleurs
Lit! ou je nais, et ou je meurs,
Tu nous fais voir comment voisins
Sont nos plaisirs et chagrins.
In bed we laugh, in bed we cry;
And born in bed, in bed we die;
The near approach a bed may snow
Of human bliss to human woe.
Like feather-bed betwixt a wall
And heavy brunt of cannon ball.
O bed! O bed! delicious bed!
That heaven upon earth to the weary head.
The bed has become a place of luxury to me!
I would not exchange it for all the thrones in the world.
BEE
The honey-bee that wanders all day long
The field, the woodland, and the garden o'er,
To gather in his fragrant winter store,
Humming in calm content his winter song,
Seeks not alone the rose's glowing breast,
The lily's dainty cup, the violet's lips,
But from all rank and noxious weeds he sips
The single drop of sweetness closely pressed
Within the poison chalice.
The pedigree of honey
Does not concern the bee;
A clover, any time, to him
Is aristocracy.
His labor is a chant,
His idleness a tune;
Oh, for a bee's experience
Of clovers and of noon!
