Others

To gild refined gold, to paint the lily, To throw a perfume on the violet, To smooth the ice, or add another hue Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish, Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.

As bright Apollo’s lute, strung with his hair; And when Love speaks, the voice of all the gods Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony.

As bright Apollo’s lute, strung with his hair; And when Love speaks, the voice of all the gods Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony.

As bright Apollo’s lute, strung with his hair; And when Love speaks, the voice of all the gods Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony.

From women’s eyes this doctrine I derive: They sparkle still the right Promethean fire; They are the books, the arts, the academes, That show, contain, and nourish all the world.

From women’s eyes this doctrine I derive: They sparkle still the right Promethean fire; They are the books, the arts, the academes, That show, contain, and nourish all the world.

It adds a precious seeing to the eye.

But love, first learned in a lady’s eyes, Lives not alone immured in the brain.

For where is any author in the world Teaches such beauty as a woman’s eye? Learning is but an adjunct to ourself.

Beauty is bought by judgment of the eye, Not utter’d by base sale of chapmen’s tongues.

Black men are pearls in beauteous ladies’ eyes.

Who is Silvia? what is she, That all our swains commend her? Holy, fair, and wise is she; The heaven such grace did lend her, That she might admired be.

He makes sweet music with th’ enamell’d stones.

He makes sweet music with th’ enamell’d stones.

A woman mov’d is like a fountain troubled, Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty.

Our purses shall be proud, our garments poor: For ’tis the mind that makes the body rich; And as the sun breaks through the darkest clouds, So honor peereth in the meanest habit.

Kindness in women, not their beauteous looks, Shall win my love.

Time’s glory is to calm contending kings, To unmask falsehood and bring truth to light.

All orators are dumb when beauty pleadeth.

This silent war of lilies and of roses, Which Tarquin view’d in her fair face’s field.

Beauty itself doth of itself persuade The eyes of men without an orator.

An honest tale speeds best being plainly told.

He capers nimbly in a lady’s chamber To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.

The grass stoops not, she treads on it so light.