Ralph Waldo Emerson, comp. (1803–1882). Parnassus: An Anthology of Poetry. 1880.
The PortraitJohn Heywood (c. 1497c. 1580)
G
Boast not yourselves at all:
For here at hand approacheth one
Whose face will stain you all.
Excels the precious stone:
I wish to have none other books
To read or look upon.
Smileth a naked boy:
It would you all in heart suffice
To see that lamp of joy.
Where she her shape did take;
Or else I doubt if Nature could
So fair a creature make.
In truth Penelope;
In word and eke in deed steadfast:
What will you more we say?
Who could find such a wight?
Her beauty twinkleth like a star
Within the frosty night.
With such a comely grace,
More ruddier too, than in the rose
Within her lovely face.
Nor at no wanton play,
Nor gazing in an open street,
Nor gadding as astray.
Is mixt with shamefastness;
All vice she doth wholly refuse,
And hateth idleness.
How virtue can repair
And deck in her such honesty,
Whom Nature made so fair!
Of this unspotted tree?
For all the rest are plain but chaff,
Which seem good corn to be.