XII The Excellency 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 say’n,
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 sealèd 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, I.
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
Earl of Surrey.