There's no miniature
In her fair face, but is a copious theme
Which would, discoursed at large of, make a volume.
What clear-arched brows! what sparkling eyes!
The lilies
Contending with the roses on her cheeks-
Who shall most set them off. What ruby lips;
Or unto what can I compare her neck,
But to a rock of crystal? Every limb
Proportioned to love's wish, and in their neatness
Add lustre to the riches of her habit,
Not borrow from it.
He that will undergo
To make a judgment of a woman's beauty,
And see through all her plaisterings and paintings,
Had need of Lycneus' eyes, and with more ease
May look, like him, through nine mud walls than make
A true discovery of her.
Massinger.
Her sacred beauty hath enchanted heav'n,
And, had she lived before the siege of Troy,
Helen, whose beauty summon'd Greece to arms,
And drew a thousand ships to Tenedos,
Had not been nam'd in Homer's Iliad;
Her name had been in every line he wrote.
Beauty's a slipp'ry good, which decreaseth
Whilst it is increasing: resembling the
Medlar, which, in the moment of his full
Ripeness, is known to be in a rottenness.
Whilst you look in the glass, it waxeth old
With time; if in the sun, parched with heat; if
In the wind, blasted with cold. A great care
To keep it, a short space to enjoy it,
A sudden time to lose it.
Why did the gods give thee a heavenly form,
And earthly thoughts to make thee proud of it?
Why do I ask? 'Tis now the known disease
That beauty hath, to bear too deep a sense
Of her own self-conceited excellence.
So fair, that had you beauty's picture took,
It must like her, or not like beauty look.
Beauty is nature's brag, and must be shown
In courts, and feasts, and high solemnities,
Where most may wonder at the workmanship.
It is for homely features to keep home;
They had their name thence; coarse complexions,
And cheeks of sorry grain, will serve to ply
The sampler, and to tease the housewife's wool.
What need a vermeil-tinctur'd lip for that,
Love-darting eyes, and tresses like the morn?-
There was another meaning in those gifts.
In the admiration only of weak minds
Led captive; cease to admire, and all her plumes
Fall flat and shrink into a trivial toy,
At every sudden slighting quite abash'd.
Beauty is nature's coin, must not be hoarded,
But must be current, and the good thereof
Consists in mutual and partaken bliss,
Unsavoury in th' enjoyment of itself:
If you let slip time, like a neglected rose,
It withers on the stalk with languish'd head.
Beauty, like the fair Hesperian tree,
Laden with blooming gold, had need the guard
Of dragon watch with unenchanted eye,
To save her blossoms and defend her fruit
From the rash hand of bold incontinence.
Beauty, though injurious, hath strange power
After offence returning, to require
Love once possessed; nor can be easily
Repulsed, without much inward passion felt,
And secret sting of amorous remorse.
Hard is the task and bold the advent'rous flight,
Of him who dares in praise of beauty write;
For when to that high theme our thoughts ascend,
'Tis to detract, too poorly to commend.
And he, who praising beauty, does no wrong,
May boast to be successful in his song;
But when the fair themselves approve his lays,
And one accepts, and one vouchsafes to praise,
His wide ambition knows no further bound,
Nor can his muse with brighter fame be crown'd.
Congreve.
Heav'n meant that beauty, Nature's greatest force,
Having exceeding pow'r, should have remorse;
Valour, and it, the world should so enjoy,
As both might overcome, but not destroy.
What is beauty? Not the show
Of shapely limbs and features. No:
These are but flowers
That have their dated hours,
To breathe their momentary sweets, then go. 'Tis the stainless soul within
That outshines the fairest skin.
The bloom of opening flowers' unsullied beauty,
Softness, and sweetest innocence she wears,
And looks like Nature in the world's first spring.
Beauty is seldom fortunate when great,
A vast estate but overcharged with debt.
Beauty, like ice, our footing does betray:
Who can tread sure in the smooth slippery way?
Pleased with the passage, we slide swiftly on,
And see the dangers which we cannot shun.
Old as I am, for ladies' love unfit,
The power of beauty I remember yet.-Dryden.
Beauty thou art a fair but fading_flower,
The tender prey of every coming hour:
In youth, thou, comet-like, art gazed upon,
But art portentous to thyself alone:
Unpunished thou to few wert ever given,
Nor art a blessing, but a mark from heaven.
Beauty, thou wild fantastic ape,
Who dost in every country change thy shape;
Here black, there brown, here tawny, and there white;
Thou flatterer who comply'st with every sight.
Who hast no certain what nor where,
But vary'st still, and dost thyself declare
Inconstant as thy she-possessors are.
"Tis not a lip or eye we beauty call,
But the full force and joint effect of all.
'Tis not a set of features, or complexion,
The tincture of a skin, that I admire;
Beauty soon grows familiar to the lover,
Fades in his eye, and palls upon the sense.
What's female beauty, but an air divine,
Through which the mind's all-gentle graces shine?
They, like the sun, irradiate all between;
The body charms, because the soul is seen.
Hence men are often captives of a face,
They know not why, of no peculiar grace:
Some forms, though bright, no mortal man can bear;
Some none resist, though not exceeding fair.
Hear, ye fair daughters of this happy land,
Whose radiant eyes the vanquished world command;
Virtue is beauty: but when charms of mind
With elegance of outward form are joined;
When youth makes each bright object still more bright,
And fortune sets them in the strongest light;
'Tis all of heaven that we below may view, And all but adoration is your due.
Ah me! the blooming pride of May,
And that of beauty are but one;
At morn, both flourish bright and gay,
Both fade at evening, pale and gone.
Beauty! thou pretty plaything! dear deceit,
That steals so softly o'er the stripling's heart,
And gives it a new pulse unknown before!
The grave discredits thee: thy charms expung'd,
Thy roses faded, and thy lilies soil'd,
What hast thou more to boast of? will thy lovers
Flock round thee now, to gaze and do thee homage?
Methinks I see thee with thy head laid low;
Whilst surfeited upon thy damask cheek,
The high-fed worm, in lazy volumes roll'd,
Riots unscared. For this was all thy caution?
For this thy painful labours at thy glass,
T'improve those charms and keep them in repair,
For which the spoiler thanks thee not? Foul feeder!
Coarse fare and carrion please thee full as well,
And leave as keen a relish on the sense.
Beauty's our grief, but in the ore,
We mint, we stamp, and then adore;
Like heathens we the image crown,
And indiscreetly then fall down.
Do not idolatrize; beauty's a flow'r
Which springs and withers almost in an hour.
O how I grudge the grave this heav'nly form!
Thy beauties will inspire the arms of death,
And warm the pale cold tyrant into life.
I am not carved from stone, and cannot hear
Music without emotion, nor unmoved
Look on a flower, or aught that's beautiful.
Lo! when the buds expand, the leaves are green,
Then the first opening of the flower is seen;
Then come the humid breath and rosy smile,
That with their sweets the willing sense beguile:
But as we look, and love, and taste, and praise,
And the fruit grows the charming flower decays;
Till all is gathered, and the wintry blast
Mourns o'er the place of love and pleasure past.
So 't is with beauty,-such the opening grace,
The crown of glory in the youthful face.
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