147. Elizabeth of Bohemia

YOU meaner beauties of the night,

That poorly satisfy our eyes

More by your number than your light,

You common people of the skies,

What are you, when the Moon shall rise?

Ye violets that first appear,

By your pure purple mantles known

Like the proud virgins of the year,

As if the spring were all your own,—

What are you, when the Rose is blown?

Ye curious chanters of the wood

That warble forth dame Nature’s lays,

Thinking your passions understood

By your weak accents; what’s your praise

When Philomel her voice doth raise?

So when my Mistress shall be seen

In sweetness of her looks and mind,

By virtue first, then choice, a Queen,

Tell me, if she were not design’d

Th’ eclipse and glory of her kind?