DELIGHT IN DISORDER

A SWEET disorder in the dress
Kindles in clothes a wantonness:
A lawn about the shoulders thrown
Into a fine distraction:

An erring lace, which here and there
Enthrals the crimson stomacher:
A cuff neglectful, and thereby
Ribbons to flow confusedly:

A winning wave, deserving note,
In the tempestuous petticoat:

A careless shoe-string, in whose tie
I see a wild civility:

Do more bewitch me than when art

Is too precise in every part.

Robert Herrick [1591-1674]

A PRAISE OF HIS LADY

GIVE place, you ladies, and begone!
Boast not yourselves at all!
For here at hand approacheth one
Whose face will stain you all.

The virtue of her lively looks
Excels the precious stone;

I wish to have none other books
To read or look upon.

In each of her two crystal eyes
Smileth a naked boy;

It would you all in heart suffice
To see that lamp of joy.

I think Nature hath lost the mould
Where she her shape did take;

Or else I doubt if Nature could

So fair a creature make.

A Praise of His Lady

She may be well compared

Unto the Phoenix kind,

Whose like was never seen nor heard,

That any man can find.

In life she is Diana chaste,

In truth Penelope;

In word and eke in deed steadfast.
What will you more we say?

If all the world were sought so far,
Who could find such a wight?
Her beauty twinkleth like a star
Within the frosty night.

Her roseal color comes and goes
With such a comely grace,

More ruddier, too, than doth the rose

Within her lively face.

At Bacchus' feast none shall her meet,

Nor at no wanton play,

Nor gazing in an open street,
Nor gadding as a stray.

The modest mirth that she doth use

Is mixed with shamefastness; All vice she doth wholly refuse,

And hateth idleness.

O Lord! it is a world to see
How virtue can repair,
And deck her in such honesty,
Whom Nature made so fair.

Truly she doth so far exceed
Our women nowadays,
As doth the gillyflower a weed;
And more a thousand ways.

365

How might I do to get a graff
Of this unspotted tree?

For all the rest are plain but chaff,
Which seem good corn to be.

This gift alone I shall her give:
When death doth what he can,
Her honest fame shall ever live
Within the mouth of man.

John Heywood [1497?-1580?]

ON A CERTAIN LADY AT COURT

I KNOW a thing that's most uncommon;

(Envy, be silent and attend!)

I know a reasonable woman,

Handsome and witty, yet a friend.

Not warped by passion, awed by rumor;

Not grave through pride, nor gay through folly; An equal mixture of good-humor

And sensible soft melancholy.

"Has she no faults then (Envy says), Sir?"

Yes, she has one, I must aver:

When all the world conspires to praise her,

The woman's deaf, and does not hear.

Alexander Pope [1688-1744]

PERFECT WOMAN

SHE was a phantom of delight

When first she gleamed upon my sight;

A lovely apparition, sent

To be a moment's ornament;

Her eyes as stars of twilight fair;
Like twilight's, too, her dusky hair;
But all things else about her drawn
From May-time and the cheerful dawn;
A dancing shape, an image gay,
To haunt, to startle, and waylay.

The Solitary-Hearted

I saw her upon nearer view,
A Spirit, yet a Woman too!

Her household motions light and free,
And steps of virgin liberty;

A countenance in which did meet
Sweet records, promises as sweet;
A creature not too bright or good
For human nature's daily food;
For transient sorrows, simple wiles,
Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.

And now I see with eye serene
The very pulse of the machine;
A being breathing thoughtful breath,
A traveller between life and death;
The reason firm, the temperate will,
Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill;
A perfect Woman, nobly planned,
To warn, to comfort, and command;
And yet a Spirit still, and bright
With something of angelic light.

367

William Wordsworth (1770-1850]

THE SOLITARY-HEARTED

SHE was a queen of noble Nature's crowning,
A smile of hers was like an act of grace;
She had no winsome looks, no pretty frowning,

Like daily beauties of the vulgar race:

But if she smiled, a light was on her face,

A clear, cool kindliness, a lunar beam

Of peaceful radiance, silvering o'er the stream

Of human thought with unabiding glory;
Not quite a waking truth, not quite a dream,

A visitation, bright and transitory.

But she is changed,-hath felt the touch of sorrow,
No love hath she, no understanding friend;
O grief! when Heaven is forced of earth to borrow
What the poor niggard earth has not to lend;

But when the stalk is snapped, the rose must bend.
The tallest flower that skyward rears its head

Grows from the common ground, and there must shed
Its delicate petals. Cruel fate, too surely,

That they should find so base a bridal bed,
Who lived in virgin pride, so sweet and purely.

She had a brother, and a tender father,
And she was loved, but not as others are
From whom we ask return of love,—but rather
As one might love a dream; a phantom fair
Of something exquisitely strange and rare,
Which all were glad to look on, men and maids,
Yet no one claimed-as oft, in dewy glades,
The peering primrose, like a sudden gladness,
Gleams on the soul, yet unregarded fades;-
The joy is ours, but all its own the sadness.

'Tis vain to say-her worst of grief is only
The common lot, which all the world have known;
To her 'tis more, because her heart is lonely,
And yet she hath no strength to stand alone,~
Once she had playmates, fancies of her own,
And she did love them. They are passed away
As Fairies vanish at the break of day;
And like a sceptre of an age departed,
Or unsphered Angel wofully astray,
She glides along-the solitary-hearted.

Hartley Coleridge [1796-1849]

OF THOSE WHO WALK ALONE

WOMEN there are on earth, most sweet and high, Who lose their own, and walk bereft and lonely, Loving that one lost heart until they die,

Loving it only.

And so they never see beside them grow

Children, whose coming is like breath of flowers; Consoled by subtler loves the angels know Through childless hours.