Geue place ye louers, here before <br />That spent your bostes and bragges in vaine: <br />My Ladies beawtie passeth more <br />The best of yours, I dare well sayen, <br />Than doth the sonne, the candle light: <br />Or brightest day, the darkest night. <br /> <br />And thereto hath a trothe as iust, <br />As had Penelope the fayre. <br />For what she saith, ye may it trust, <br />As it by writing sealed were. <br />And vertues hath she many moe, <br />Than I with pen haue skill to showe. <br /> <br />I coulde rehearse, if that I wolde, <br />The whole effect of natures plaint, <br />When she had lost the perfit mold, <br />The like to whom she could not paint: <br />With wringyng handes howe she dyd cry, <br />And what she said, I know it, I. <br /> <br />I knowe, she swore with ragyng mynd: <br />Her kingdom onely set apart, <br />There was no losse, by lawe of kind, <br />That could haue gone so nere her hart. <br />And this was chiefly all her payne: <br />She coulde not make the lyke agayne. <br /> <br />Sith nature thus gaue her the prayse, <br />To be the chiefest worke she wrought: <br />In faith, me thinke, some better waies <br />On your behalfe might well be sought, <br />Then to compare (as ye haue done) <br />To matche the candle with the sonne.<br /><br />Henry Howard<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/geue-place-ye-louers-here-before/
