| 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 | 5 |
| 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; | 10 |
| 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 | 15 |
| So fair a creature make. | |
| |
| She may be well compared | |
| Unto the Phoenix kind, | |
| Whose like was never seen or heard, | |
| That any man can find. | 20 |
| |
| In life she is Diana chaste, | |
| In troth Penelopey; | |
| In word and eke in deed steadfast. | |
| —What will you more we say? | |
| |
| If all the world were sought so far, | 25 |
| Who could find such a wight? | |
| Her beauty twinkleth like a star | |
| Within the frosty night. | |
| |
| Her rosial colour comes and goes | |
| With such a comely grace, | 30 |
| More ruddier, too, than doth the rose, | |
| Within her lively face. | |
| |
| At Bacchus' feast none shall her meet, | |
| Ne at no wanton play, | |
| Nor gazing in an open street, | 35 |
| Nor gadding as a stray. | |
| |
| The modest mirth that she doth use | |
| Is mix'd with shamefastness; | |
| All vice she doth wholly refuse, | |
| And hateth idleness. | 40 |
| |
| O Lord! it is a world to see | |
| How virtue can repair, | |
| And deck in her such honesty, | |
| Whom Nature made so fair. | |
| |
| Truly she doth so far exceed | 45 |
| Our women nowadays, | |
| As doth the jeliflower a weed; | |
| And more a thousand ways. | |
| |
| How might I do to get a graff | |
| Of this unspotted tree? | 50 |
| —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 | 55 |
| Within the mouth of man. | |
