Beauty

Take him and cut him out in little stars, And he will make the face of heaven so fine That all the world will be in love with night, And pay no worship to the garish sun.

He jests at scars, that never felt a wound. But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun!

It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop’s ear; Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

For he being dead, with him is beauty slain, And, beauty dead, black chaos comes again.

Was this the face that launched a thousand ships, And burnt the topless towers of Ilium? 5 Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss. Her lips suck forth my soul; 6 see, where it flies!

Oh, thou art fairer than the evening air Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars.

Come live with me, and be my love; And we will all the pleasures prove That valleys, groves, hills, and fields, 1 Woods or steepy mountain yields.