Upon His Mistris’s Black Eye-browes
Hide, oh hide those lovely Browes,
Cupid takes them for his bowes,
And from thence with winged dart
He lies pelting at my heart,
Nay, unheard-of wounds doth give,
Wounded in the heart I live;
From their colour I descry,
Loves bowes are made of Ebony;
Or their Sable seemes to say
They mourn for those their glances slay;
Or their blacknesse doth arise
From the Sun-beams of your eyes,
Where Apollo seemes to sit,
As he’s God of Day and Wit;
Your piercing Rayes, so bright, and cleare,
Shewes his beamy Chariots there.
Then the black upon your brow,
Sayest wisdomes sable hue, [? sagest]
Tells to every obvious eye,
There’s his other Deity.
This too shewes him deeply wise,
To dwell there he left the skies;
So pure a black could Phœbus burn,
He himself would Negro turn,
And for such a dresse would slight
His gorgeous attire of light;
Eclipses he would count a blisse,
Were there such a black as this:
Were Night’s dusky mantle made
Of so glorious a shade,
The ruffling day she would out-vie
In costly dresse, and gallantry:
Were Hell’s darknesse such a black,
For it the Saints would Heaven forsake;
So pure a black, that white from hence
Loses its name of innocence;
And the most spotlesse Ivory is
A very stain and blot to this:
So pure a black, that hence I guesse,
Black first became a holy dresse.
The Gods foreseeing this, did make
Their Priests array themselves in Black.