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Home  »  The Book of Restoration Verse  »  Thomas Flatman (1637–1688)

William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Restoration Verse. 1910.

The Defiance

Thomas Flatman (1637–1688)

BE not too proud, imperious dame,

Your charms are transitory things,

May melt, while you at heaven aim,

Like Icarus’s waxen wings;

And you a part in his misfortune bear

Drowned in a briny ocean of despair.

You think your beauties are above

The poet’s brain and painter’s hand,

As if upon the throne of love

You only should the world command:

Yet know, though you presume your title true,

There are pretenders that will rival you.

There’s an experienced rebel, Time,

And in his squadron ’s Poverty;

There’s Age that brings along with him

A terrible artillery:

And if against all these thou keep’st thy crown,

The usurper Death will make thee lay it down.