It is not Beauty I demand, <br />A crystal brow, the moon's despair, <br />Nor the snow's daughter, a white hand, <br />Nor mermaid's yellow pride of hair. <br /> <br />Tell me not of your starry eyes, <br />Your lips that seem on roses fed, <br />Your breasts where Cupid trembling lies, <br />Nor sleeps for kissing of his bed. <br /> <br />A bloomy pair of vermeil cheeks, <br />Like Hebe's in her ruddiest hours, <br />A breath that softer music speaks <br />Than summer winds a-wooing flowers. <br /> <br />These are but gauds; nay, what are lips? <br />Coral beneath the ocean-stream, <br />Whose brink when your adventurer sips <br />Full oft he perisheth on them. <br /> <br />And what are cheeks but ensigns oft <br />That wave hot youth to fields of blood? <br />Did Helen's breast though ne'er so soft, <br />Do Greece or Ilium any good? <br /> <br />Eyes can with baleful ardor burn, <br />Poison can breath that erst perfumed, <br />There's many a white hand holds an urn <br />With lovers' hearts to dust consumed. <br /> <br />For crystal brows--there's naught within, <br />They are but empty cells for pride; <br />He who the Syren's hair would win <br />Is mostly strangled in the tide. <br /> <br />Give me, instead of beauty's bust, <br />A tender heart, a loyal mind, <br />Which with temptation I could trust, <br />Yet never linked with error find. <br /> <br />One in whose gentle bosom I <br />Could pour my secret heart of woes. <br />Like the care-burdened honey-fly <br />That hides his murmurs in the rose. <br /> <br />My earthly comforter! whose love <br />So indefeasible might be, <br />That when my spirit won above <br />Hers could not stay for sympathy.<br /><br />George Darley<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/it-is-not-beauty-i-demand/
