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Aurelian Townshend's Poem and Masks

Edited by E. K. Chambers

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3

I.

[Let not thy beauty make thee proud]

Let not thy beauty make thee proud
Though Princes do adore thee,
Since time & sicknes were alow'd
To mow such flowers before thee.
Nor be not shy to that degree,
Thy friends may hardly know thee,
Nor yet so comming or so free,
That every fly may blow thee.
A state in every Princely brow,
As decent is requir'd,
Much more in thine, to whom they bow
By Beauties lightnings fir'd.
And yet a state so sweetly mixt
With an attractive mildnesse,
It may like Vertue sit betwixt
The extreams of pride and vilenesse.
Then every eye that sees thy face
Will in thy Beauty glory,
And every tongue that wags will grace
Thy vertue with a story.