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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


TRUE WOMAN by WILLIAM MOTHERWELL

Poet Analysis

First Line: NO QUAINT CONCEIT OF SPEECH
Last Line: IS AYE A GENTLE MIND.
Subject(s): WOMEN;

NO QUAINT conceit of speech,
No golden, minted phrase --
Dame Nature needs to teach
To echo Woman's praise;
Pure love and truth unite
To do thee, Woman, right!

She is the faithful mirror
Of thoughts that brightest be --
Of feelings without error,
Of matchless constancie;
When art essays to render
More glorious Heaven's bow --
To paint the virgin splendour
Of fresh-fallen mountain snow --
New fancies will I find,
To laud true Woman's mind.

No words can lovelier make
Virtue's all-lovely name,
No change can ever shake
A woman's virtuous fame:
The moon is forth anew,
Though envious clouds endeavour
To screen her from our view --
More beautiful than ever:
So, through detraction's haze,
True Woman shines alwaies.

The many-tinted Rose,
Of gardens is the queen,
The perfumed Violet knows
No peer where she is seen --
The flower of woman-kind
Is aye a gentle mind.



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