Give place, ye lovers, here before <br />That spent your boasts and brags in vain; <br />My lady's beauty passeth more <br />The best of yours, I dare well sayn, <br />Than doth the sun the candle-light, <br />Or brightest day the darkest night. <br /> <br />And thereto hath a troth as just <br />As had Penelope the fair; <br />For what she saith, ye may it trust, <br />As it by writing sealed were; <br />And virtues hath she many mo <br />Than I with pen have skill to show. <br /> <br />I could rehearse, if that I wold, <br />The whole effect of Nature's plaint, <br />When she had lost the perfit mould, <br />The like to whom she could not paint; <br />With wringing hands, how she did cry, <br />And what she said, I know it, I. <br /> <br />I know she swore with raging mind, <br />Her kingdom only set apart, <br />There was no loss by law of kind, <br />That could have gone so near her heart; <br />And this was chiefly all her pain; <br />She could not make the like again. <br /> <br />Sith Nature thus gave her the praise, <br />To be the chiefest work she wrought; <br />In faith, methink, some better ways <br />On your behalf might well be sought, <br />Than to compare, as ye have done, <br />To match the candle with the sun.<br /><br />Henry Howard<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-praise-of-his-love/
