John Wilbye: Verses about Beautiful

As matchless beauty thee a Phoenix proves,
Fair Leonilla, so thy sour-sweet loves.
For when young Acon's eye thy proud heart tames,
Thou diest in him, and livest in my flames.

Hard destinies are love and beauty parted,
Fair Daphne so disdainful!
Cupid, thy shafts are too unjustly darted;
Fond love, thy wounds are painful:
But sith my lovely jewel
Is prov’d so coy and cruel,
I’ll live and frolic in her beauty’s treasure,
But languish, faint, and die in her displeasure

There, where I saw her lovely beauty painted,
Where, Venus-like, my sacred goddess shineth,
There, with *precellent object mine eyes fainted,
That fair, but fatal star, my dole divineth.
As soon as morning in her light appeareth,
Her sweet salute, my mind o’erclouded, cleareth;
When night again the day’s delight bereaveth,
My heart’s true sacrifice she quick receiveth:
But night and day she craftily forsakes me,
To tedious day, to loathsome night betakes me.