University of Virginia Library

Geue place you Ladies

A praise of his Ladye.

Geue place you Ladies and be gon,
Boast not your selues at all:
For here at hande approcheth one
Whose face will staine you all.
The vertue of her liuely lokes,
Excels the precious stone:
I wishe to haue none other bokes
To read or loke vpon.
In eche of her two cristall eyes,
Smileth a naked boye:
It would you all in hart suffise
To see that lampe of ioye.
I thinke nature hath lost the moulde,
Where she her shape did take:

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Or els I doubt if nature could,
So faire a creature make.
She may be well comparde
Vnto the Phenix kinde:
Whose like was neuer sene nor heard,
That any man can finde.
In life she is Diana chast,
In trouth Penelopey:
In word and eke in dede stedfast,
What will you more we sey.
If all the world were sought so farre,
Who could finde such a wight:
Her beauty twinkleth like a starre,
Within the frosty night.
Her rosiall colour comes and goes,
With such a comely grace:
More redier to then doth the rose,
Within her liuely face.
At Bacchus feast none shall her mete,
Ne at no wanton play:
Nor gasyng in an open strete,
Nor gaddyng as a stray.
The modest mirth that she dothe vse,
Is mixt with shamefastnesse:
All vice she dothe wholy refuse,
And hateth ydlenesse.
O lord it is a world to see,
How vertue can repaire:
And decke in her such honestie,
Whom nature made so fayre.
Truely she dothe as farre excede,
Our women now adayes:
As dothe the Ielifloure a wede,
And more a thousande wayes.
How might I do to get a graffe:
Of this vnspotted tree.
For all the rest are plaine but chaffe,
Which seme good corne to be.
This gift alone I shall her geue
When death doth what he can:
Her honest fame shall euer liue,
Within the mouth of man.

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