Page:Romance of the Rose (Ellis), volume 2.pdf/99

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Silver and gems, on neck and head,

Whose value might be safely said

Above five hundred pounds, and ask

That I your worthless body mask

With silks and satins to your taste,

While I may fret, and pine, and waste

(So much it wears and vexes me)

With angry spleen and jealousy.

What for these orfreys do I care

With which you twist and bind your hair,

Entwined with threads of gold? and why

Must you have set in ivory

Enamelled mirrors, sprinkled o’er

With golden circlets? (Nothing more

Enrages me), and why these gems

Befitting kingly diadems,

Rubies and pearls, and sapphires fair,

Which cause you to assume an air

Of mad conceit?

These costly stuffs,

And plaited furbelows and ruffs,

And cinctures to set off your waist,

With pearls bedeckt and richly chased,

And morses and rich fastenings;

What use to me are all such things?

And wherefore, say then, do you choose

To fit your feet with gaudy shoes,

Except you have a lust to show

Your shapely legs?

By St. Thibaud,

Ere yet three days are past I’ll sell

This trash, and trample you pell-mell;