| |
| GIVE place, ye lovers, here before | |
| That spent your boasts and brags in vain; | |
| My Lady’s beauty passeth more | |
| The best of yours, I dare well sayen, | |
| Than doth the sun the candle light, | 5 |
| Or brightest day the darkest night. | |
| |
| And thereto hath a troth as just | |
| As had Penelope the fair; | |
| For what she saith, ye may it trust, | |
| As it by writing sealed were: | 10 |
| And virtues hath she many mo’ | |
| Than I with pen have skill to show. | |
| |
| I could rehearse, if that I would, | |
| The whole effect of Nature’s plaint, | |
| When she had lost the perfect mould, | 15 |
| The like to whom she could not paint: | |
| With wringing hands, how she did cry. | |
| And what she said, I know it, aye. | |
| |
| I know she swore with raging mind, | |
| Her kingdom only set apart, | 20 |
| There was no loss by law of kind | |
| That could have gone so near her heart | |
| And this was chiefly all her pain; | |
| ‘She could not make the like again.’ | |
| |
| Sith Nature thus gave her the praise, | 25 |
| To be the chiefest work she wrought; | |
| In faith, methink! some better ways | |
| On your behalf might well be sought | |
| Than to compare, as ye have done, | |
| To match the candle with the sun. | 30 |
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