Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/257

 BEN JONSON

Have you seen but a bright lily grow Before rude hands have touch'd it ?

Have you mark'd but the fall of the snow Before the soil hath smutch J d it?

Have you felt the wool of beaver,

Or swan's down ever ?

Or have smelt o' the bud o' the brier,

Or the nard in the fire?

Or have tasted the bag of the bee ?

O so white, O so soft, O so sweet is she!

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��200 An Elegy

\ HOUGH beauty be the mark of praise, And yours of whom I sing be such As not the world can praise too much, Yet 'tis your Virtue now I raise.

A virtue, like allay so gone

Throughout your form as, though that move And draw and conquer all men's love,

This subjects you to love of one.

Wherein you triumph yet because 'Tis of your flesh, and that you use The noblest freedom, not to choose

Against or faith or honour's laws.

But who should less expect from you ?

In whom alone Love lives again.

By whom he is restored to men, And kept and bred and brought up true.

200 allay] alloy.

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