IF I should say, that in your face were seene, Nature's best picture of the Cyprian Queene; If I should sweare under Minerva's Name, Poets (who Prophets are) foretold your fame; The future age would thinke it flatterie, But to the present, which can witnesse be, 'Twould seeme beneath your high deserts, as farre, As you above the rest of Women are. When Mannors' name with Villiers' joyn'd I see, How doe I reverence your Nobilitie! But when the vertues of your stocke I view, (Envi'd in your dead Lord, admir'd in you) I halfe adore them; for what woman can Besides your selfe (nay I might say what man) Both Sexe, and Birth, and Fate, and yeeres excell In mind, in fame, in worth, in living well? O how had this begot Idolatrie, If you had liv'd in the World's infancie, When man's too much Religion made the best Or Deities, or Semygods at least? But we, forbidden this by pietie, Or, if we were not, by your modestie, Will make our hearts an Altar, and there pray Not to, but for you; nor that England may Enjoy your equall, when you once are gone, But what's more possible, t' enjoy you long. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...INDIAN WOMAN'S DEATH-SONG by FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS ON THE BUILDING OF SPRINGFIELD by NICHOLAS VACHEL LINDSAY THOMAS HOOD by EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON THE DESERTED HOUSE by ALFRED TENNYSON OF AN ORCHARD by KATHARINE TYNAN THE BASE OF ALL METAPHYSICS by WALT WHITMAN |