Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
Robert Greene. 156092104. Fawnia
AH! were she pitiful as she is fair, | |
Or but as mild as she is seeming so, | |
Then were my hopes greater than my despair, | |
Then all the world were heaven, nothing woe. | |
Ah! were her heart relenting as her hand, | 5 |
That seems to melt even with the mildest touch, | |
Then knew I where to seat me in a land | |
Under wide heavens, but yet there is not such. | |
So as she shows she seems the budding rose, | |
Yet sweeter far than is an earthly flower; | 10 |
Sovran of beauty, like the spray she grows; | |
Compass’d she is with thorns and canker’d flower. | |
Yet were she willing to be pluck’d and worn, | |
She would be gather’d, though she grew on thorn. | |
Ah! when she sings, all music else be still, | 15 |
For none must be comparèd to her note; | |
Ne’er breathed such glee from Philomela’s bill, | |
Nor from the morning-singer’s swelling throat. | |
Ah! when she riseth from her blissful bed | |
She comforts all the world as doth the sun, | 20 |
And at her sight the night’s foul vapour ‘s fled; | |
When she is set the gladsome day is done. | |
O glorious sun, imagine me the west, | |
Shine in my arms, and set thou in my breast! |