StoryTitle("caps", "A~Praise of~His~Lady") ?>
From Tottel's Miscellany (1557)
PoemStart() ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Give place, you ladies, and begone!", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Boast not yourselves at all!", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "For here at hand approacheth one", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Whose face will stain you all.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "The virtue of her lively looks", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Excels the precious stone;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "I wish to have none other books", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "To read or look upon.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "In each of her two crystal eyes", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Smileth a naked boy;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "It would you all in heart suffice", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "To see that lamp of joy.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "I think Nature hath lost the mould", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Where she her shape did take;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Or else I doubt if Nature could", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "So fair a creature make.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "She may be well compared", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Unto the Phœnix kind,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Whose like was never seen or heard,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "That any man can find.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "In life she is Diana chaste,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "In troth Penelopey;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "In word and eke in deed steadfast.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "—What will you more we say?", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "If all the world were sought so far,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Who could find such a wight?", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Her beauty twinkleth like a star", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Within the frosty night.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Her rosial colour comes and goes", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "With such a comely grace,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "More ruddier, too, than doth the rose,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Within her lively face.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "At Bacchus' feast none shall her meet,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Ne at no wanton play,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Nor gazing in an open street,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Nor gadding as a stray.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "The modest mirth that she doth use", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Is mix'd with shamefastness;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "All vice she doth wholly refuse,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "And hateth idleness.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "O Lord! it is a world to see", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "How virtue can repair,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And deck in her such honesty,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Whom Nature made so fair.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Truly she doth so far exceed", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Our women nowadays,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "As doth the jeliflower a weed;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "And more a thousand ways.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "How might I do to get a graff", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Of this unspotted tree?", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "—For all the rest are plain but chaff,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Which seem good corn to be.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "This gift alone I shall her give;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "When death doth what he can,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Her honest fame shall ever live", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Within the mouth of man.", "") ?>
Poet("John Heywood (?)", "1497?-1580?") ?>
PoemEnd() ?>