Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/194

 SAMUEL DANIEL

723 Beauty y Time, and Love

SONNETS, i

FAIR is my Love and cruel as she 's fair; Her brow-shades frown, although her eyes arc sunny. Her smiles are lightning, though her pride despair, And her disdains are gall, her favours honey: A modest maid, dcck'd with a blush of honour, Whose feet do tread green paths of youth and love, The wonder of all eyes that look upon her, Sacred on earth, design'd a Saint above. Chastity and Beauty, which were deadly foes, Live reconciled friends within her brow; And had she Pity to conjoin with those, Then who had heard the plaints I utter now^ For had she not been fair, and thus unkind, My Muse had slept, and none had known my mind.

ii

My spotless love hovers with purest wings,

About the temple of the proudest frame,

Where blaze those lights, fairest of earthly things,

Which clear our clouded world with brightest flame.

My ambitious thoughts, confined in her face,

Affect no honour but what she can give,

My hopes do rest in limits of her grace;

I weigh no comfort unless she relieve.

For she, that can my heart imparadise,

Holds in her fairest hand what dearest is;

My Fortune's wheel 's the circle of her eyes,

Whose rolling grace deign once a turn of bliss.

All my life's sweet consists in her alone;

So much I love the most Unloving one.

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