A Handful of Pleasant Delights/A Sonet of a Louer in the praise of his lady
A Sonet of a Loner in the praise of his lady.
To Calen o Custure me: sung at euerie lines end.
Hen as I view your comly grace, Ca. &c
Your golden haires, your angels face:
Your azured veines much like the skies,
Your siluer teeth, your Christall eies.
Your Corall lips, your crimson cheeks,
That Gods and men both loue and leekes,
¶Your pretie mouth with diuers gifts,
Which driueth wise men to their shifts:
So braue, so fine, so trim, so yong,
With heauenlie wit and pleasant tongue,
That Pallas though she did excell,
Could frame ne tel a tale so well.
¶Your voice so sweet, your necke so white,
your bodie fine and small in sight:
Your fingers long so nimble be,
To vtter foorth such harmonic,
As all the Muses for a space:
To sit and heare do giue you place.
¶Your pretie foot with all the rest,
That may be scene or may be gest:
Doth beare such shape, that beautie may
Giue place to thee and go her way:
And Paris nowe must change his doome,
For Venus lo must giue thee roome.
¶Whose gleams doth heat my hart as fier,
Although I burne, yet would I nier:
Within my selfe then can I say:
The night is gone, behold the day:
Behold the star so cleare and bright,
As dimmes the sight of Phœbus light:
¶Whose fame by pen for to discriue,
Doth passe ech wight that is aliue:
Then how dare I with boldned face,
Presume to craue or wish your grace?
And thus amazed as I stand,
Not feeling sense, nor moouing hand.
¶My soule with silence moouing sense,
Doth wish of God with reuerence,
Long life, and vertue you possesse:
To match those gifts of worthinesse,
And loue and pitie may be spide,
To be your chief and onely guide.