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Home  »  The Poetical Works  »  Request to his Love to join Bounty with Beauty

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517–47). The Poetical Works. 1880.

Songs and Sonnets

Request to his Love to join Bounty with Beauty

THE GOLDEN gift that Nature did thee give,

To fasten friends and feed them at thy will,

With form and favour, taught me to believe,

How thou art made to shew her greatest skill.

Whose hidden virtues are not so unknown,

But lively dooms might gather at the first

Where beauty so her perfect seed hath sown,

Of other graces follow needs there must.

Now certes, Garret, since all this is true,

That from above thy gifts are thus elect,

Do not deface them then with fancies new;

Nor change of minds, let not the mind infect:

But mercy him thy friend that doth thee serve;

Who seeks alway thine honour to preserve.