Blue were her eyes as the fairy-flax.
Her cheeks like the dawn of day,
And her bosom white as the hawthorn buds,
That ope in the month of May.
Oh, could you view the melodie
Of ev'ry grace,
And musick of her face,
You'd drop a teare,
Seeing more harmonie
In her bright eye,
Then now you heare.
You are beautiful and faded
Like an old opera tune
Played upon a harpsichord.
Where none admire, 'tis useless to excel;
Where none are beaux, 'tis vain to be a belle.
Beauty, like wit, to judges should be shown;
Both most are valued where they best are known.
Beauty and sadness always go together.
Nature thought beauty too rich to go forth
Upon the earth without a meet alloy.
George MacDonald
| work = Within and Without.
Pt. IV. Sc. 3.
O, thou art fairer than the evening air
Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars.
Marlowe
| work = Faustus.
'Tis evanescence that endures;
The loveliness that dies the soonest has the longest life.
The rainbow is a momentary thing,
The afterglows are ashes while we gaze.
Don Marquis
| work = The Paradox.
Too fair to worship, too divine to love.
Henry Hart Milman
| work = Belvidere Apollo.
Beauty is Nature's coin, must not be hoarded,
But must be current, and the good thereof
Consists in mutual and partaken bliss
Beauty is nature's brag, and must be shown
In courts, at feasts, and high solemnities,
Where most may wonder at the workmanship.
| author = Milton
| work = Comus. L. 745.
Hung over her enamour'd, and beheld
Beauty, which, whether waking or asleep,
Shot forth peculiar graces.
| author = Milton
| work = Paradise Lost.
| place = Bk. V. L. 13.
She fair, divinely fair, fit love forgods.
| author = Milton
| work = Paradise Lost.
| place = Bk. LX. L. 489.
| seealso = (See also Tennyson)
| topic = Beauty
| page = 60
}}
{{Hoyt quote
| num =
| text = <poem>* * * for beauty stands
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.
| author = Milton
| work = Paradise Regained.
| place = Bk. II. L. 220.
| author =
| place =
| note =
| topic =
| page = 60
}}
{{Hoyt quote
| num = 15
| text = And ladies of the Hesperides, that seemed
Fairer than feign'd of old.
Yet beauty, tho' injurious, hath strange power.
After offence returning, to regain
Love once possess'd.
Melton
| work = Samson Agonistes. L. 1003.
The maid who modestly conceals
Her beauties, while she hides, reveals:
Gives but a glimpse, and fancy draws
Whate'er the Grecian Venus was.
Edward Moore
| work = Spider and the Bee. Fable
X.
Not more the rose, the queen of flowers,
Outblushes all the bloom of bower,
Than she unrivall'd grace discloses;
The sweetest rose, where all are roses.
Moore
| work = Odes of Anacreon. OdeLXVI.
To weave a garland for the rose,
And think thus crown'd 'twould lovelier be,
Were far less vain than to suppose
That silks and gems add grace to thee.
Moore
| work = Songs from the Greek Anthology. To
Weave a Garland.
Die when you will, you need not wear
At heaven's Court a form more fair
Than Beauty here on Earth has given:
Keep but the lovely looks we see
The voice we hear, and you will be
An angel ready-made for heaven.
Moore. Versification of Lord Herbert of
Cherbury, Life. P. 36.
| seealso = (See also Oldham)
| topic = Beauty
| page = 60
}}
{{Hoyt quote
| num =
| text = <poem>
zi
An' fair was her sweet bodie,
Yet fairer was her mind:—
Menie's the queen among the flowers,
The wale o' womankind.
Robert Nicoll
| work = Menie.
Altho' your frailer part must yield to Fate,
By every breach in that fair lodging made,
Its blest-inhabitant is more displayed.
Oldham
| work = To Madam L. E. on her Recovery.
106.
<poem>And should you visit now the seats of bliss,
You need not wear another form but this. Oldham
Hast thou left thy blue course in heaven, golden-haired son of the sky! The west has opened its gates; the bed of thy repose is there. The waves come, to behold thy beauty. They lift their trembling heads. They see thee lovely in thy sleep; they shrink away with fear. Rest, in thy shadowy cave, O sun! let thy return be in joy.
