The Poems of Henry Howard :: :: University of Virginia Library

Geue place, ye louers, here before
That spent your bostes and bragges in vaine;
My ladies beawtie passeth more
The best of yours, I dare well sayen,
Than doth the sonne, the candle light,
Or brightest day, the darkest night.

And thereto hath a trothe as iust
As had Penelope the fayre,
For what she saith, ye may it trust
As it by writing sealed were,
And vertues hath she many moe
Than I with pen haue skill to showe.

I could rehearse, if that I wolde,
The whole effect of Natures plaint
When she had lost the perfit mold,
The like to whom she could not paint;
With wringyng handes howe she dyd cry,
And what she said, I know it, I.

I knowe she swore with ragyng mynd,
Her kingdom onely set apart,
There was no losse, by loue of kind,
That could haue gone so nere her hart.
And this was chiefly all her payne,
She coulde not make the lyke agayne.

Sith Nature thus gaue her the prayse
To be the chiefest worke she wrought,
In faith, me thinke some better waies
On your behalfe might well be sought,
Then to compare, as ye haue done,
To matche the candle with the sonne.