Ralph Waldo Emerson, comp. (1803–1882). Parnassus: An Anthology of Poetry. 1880.
Elizabeth of BohemiaSir Henry Wotton (15681639)
Y
That poorly satisfy our eyes
More by your number than your light,—
You common people of the skies,
What are you when the sun shall rise?
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?
That warble forth dame Nature’s lays,
Thinking your voices’ understood
By your weak accents,—what’s your praise
When Philomel her voice shall raise?
In form and beauty of her mind,
By virtue first, then choice, a queen,
Tell me if she was not design’d
Th’ eclipse and glory of her kind.