A Praise Of His Love

  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 sayn,

  Than doth the sun the candle-light,

  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;

  And virtues hath she many mo

  Than I with pen have skill to show.

  I could rehearse, if that I wold,

  The whole effect of Nature's plaint,

  When she had lost the perfit mould,

  The like to whom she could not paint;

  With wringing hands, how she did cry,

  And what she said, I know it, I.

  I know she swore with raging mind,

  Her kingdom only set apart,

  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,

  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.