The poems of John Marston Edited by Arnold Davenport |
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To Perfection.
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 | The poems of John Marston |  |
To Perfection.
A Sonnet.
Oft haue I gazed with astonish'd eye,
At monstrous issues of ill shaped birth,
When I haue seene the Midwife to old earth,
Nature produce most strange deformitie.
At monstrous issues of ill shaped birth,
When I haue seene the Midwife to old earth,
Nature produce most strange deformitie.
So haue I marueld to obserue of late,
Hard fauour'd Feminines so scant of faire,
That Maskes so choicely, sheltred of the aire,
As if their beauties were not theirs by fate.
Hard fauour'd Feminines so scant of faire,
That Maskes so choicely, sheltred of the aire,
As if their beauties were not theirs by fate.
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But who so weake of obseruation,
Hath not discern'd long since how vertues wanted,
How parcimoniously the heauens haue scanted,
Our chiefest part of adornation?
Hath not discern'd long since how vertues wanted,
How parcimoniously the heauens haue scanted,
Our chiefest part of adornation?
But now I cease to wonder, now I find
The cause of all our monstrous penny-showes:
Now I conceit from whence wits scarc'tie growes,
Hard fauord features, and defects of mind.
The cause of all our monstrous penny-showes:
Now I conceit from whence wits scarc'tie growes,
Hard fauord features, and defects of mind.
Nature long time hath stor'd vp vertue, fairenesse,
Shaping the rest as foiles vnto this Rarenesse.
Shaping the rest as foiles vnto this Rarenesse.
| The poems of John Marston | |