Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. II. The Seventeenth Century: Ben Jonson to Dryden
Edmund Waller (16061687)To One Who Wrote against a Fair Lady
W
With Diomede to wound the Queen of Love?
Thy mistress’ envy, or thine own despair?
Not the just Pallas in thy breast did move;
So blind a rage with such a different fate,
He honour won, where thou hast purchased hate.
Thou that without a rival thou may’st love,
Dost to the beauty of this lady owe,
While after her the gazing world does move;
Can’st thou not be content to love alone,
Or is thy mistress not content with one?
Which, but disclosed, amazed the weaker eyes
Of proudest foes, and won the doubtful field?
So shall thy rebel wit become her prize;
Should thy iambics swell into a book,
All were confuted with one radiant look.
Rewarding Phoebus for inspiring so
His noble brain, by likening to those eyes
His joyful beams, but Phoebus is thy foe,
And neither aids thy fancy nor thy sight,
So ill thou rhym’st against so fair a light.