IX.

SHALL I PORTRAY YOUR LADYE LOVE?

1 A FAIR and gentle creature, meant
For heart, and hearth, and home content.

2 A small brunette is thine adored one-
Her hair, coal-black as jet,
Curls like parsley, passing rare

Her downy skin beyond compare.

3 Summer skies are dull to her sweet eyes,
Her tresses, richly golden,

Lie on white shoulders, round and beautiful
As Cytherea's at her birth.

Sweet ringlets, dancing eyes,

L. E. L

Hay.

Small slender fingers worthy of Titania.

Mortimer Collins.

4 The lady of your love is dusk as Ind,

Her lips are plenteous as the sphinxes' are,

And her short hair, crisp'd with the Numidian curl ·

She is a negress.

5 Beyond expression fair,

With floating flaxen hair,
Rose lips, and full blue eyes.

J. Percy Jones.

Tennyson.

6 She's young and she's fair,

7

With extremely pink cheeks, and extremely smooth hair;
And a pair of bright eyes, with so roguish a glance in 'em
The spirit of mischief and fun seems to dance in 'em,
And a sweet little foot, and a dear little hand,
And a thoroughbred air, and a look of command.

A rosy beauty

Of the Dutch-cheese order,

Rich'd with great black eyes.

Francis Smedley.

8 A quick brunette, well moulded, falcon-eyed.

9 Her glossy hair is cluster'd o'er a brow
Bright with intelligence, and fair and smooth,
Her eyebrows' shape is like the aerial bow..

10 Her eye is the dewbell, the beam of the day, And her arm it is softer than silk;

Her hand is so small, and her lip is so red-
Her slim taper waist so enchantingly made.

11 She's prettyish, and rich, but you must own She is deficient both in taste and ton.

12 There is a soft and pensive grace,
A cast of thought upon her face,
That suits right well the forehead high,
The eyelash dark, and downcast eye,
Whose mild expression speaks a mind
In duty firm, composed, resign'd.

13 So bright a bloom, so soft an air, Did ever nymph disclose?

The lily is not half so fair,

Nor half so sweet the rose.

Alex. Smith.

Tennyson.

Byron.

Hogg.

Bayly.

Scott.

Addison.

14 A certain miracle of symmetry,

A miniature of loveliness. All grace

Summ'd up and closed in little.

15 She hath a pure, transparent, pale, yet radiant face, Like to a lighted alabaster vase.

Tennyson.

Byron.

In her hazel eyes her thoughts lie clear
As pebbles in a brook.

Alexander Smith.

17 She's loveliness itself,

With downcast eyes sedate and sweet,
And looks that deeply pierce the soul.

18

She is a beautiful thought, and softly bodied forth.

Byron.

21

Her golden hair is fair to view,
But what she says is not quite true,
Or you'll be made a fool indeed.

For all the world she's like a dripping wet kerchief; she has no colour nor strength in nothing but weep-poor lady.

cambric hand

her, and does

S. Knowles.

Take heed,

Take heed,

Girschner.

As Parians see in marble-skin more fair,
More glorious head, and far more glorious hair;
Eyes full of grace and quickness; purer roses
Blush in her cheeks, a milder white composes

Her stately forehead.

23 No grape that's kindly ripe could be
So round, so plump, so soft as she.
Her cheeks so rare a white have on,
No daisy makes comparison;

(Who sees them is undone),

For streaks of red are mingled there,
Such as are on a Katherine pear,
The side that's next the sun.
Her lips are red, and one is thin
Compared to that is next her chin,

Some bee has stung it newly;
But then her eyes so guard her face
One durst no more upon them gaze
Than on the sun in July.

24 She's tall and not too straight,

And something twisted like an S.

Thomas Randolph.

Sir John Suckling.

T. Hood.

25 She is a charr'd and wrinkled piece of womanhood. Tennyson.

26 The abstract of all beauty, soul of sweetness. What eyes she hath! rather, what little heavens To stir men's contemplations.

Beaumont and Fletcher.

27 Her merry voice and laughter are melodious;
Her heart remains still set on the hair-trigger
Of smiles and tears and wilful spirits wild,
So that she still is look'd on as a child.

28

29

She is in fact the prettiest little creature,
With laughing eyes of deepest violet,
And glossy clustering locks of curly jet
With brilliancy of tint, and truth of feature.
She has a lovely little fairy figure.

A paragon of female beauty;

Her form and figure excellent-her voice

Melodiously sweet-and then her air

G. J. Cayley.

Has dignity and grace; her delicate arm and taper finger
Small, round, and white as polish'd ivory.

The rose's dew that meets the morn

Is not so fresh as she;

The slender fir on mountain side

Is not more straight and free;

Her eyes' bright azure seems to be
For gazing at heaven hopefully.

30 Her face is fairer than face of earth.
What is the thing to liken it to?

A lily just dropp'd in the summer dew-
Parian marble-snow's first fall?

Her brow is fairer than each and all :
Never can closest look descry

Anon.

Dr R. G. Latham.

In shine or in shade the hue of her eye;
Her silken tresses, so bright and so fair,
Float like a banner of light on the air.

L. E. L.

31 Straight as the stateliest pine that grows,
And fresh as blossom of the rose,

Her sparkling eyes so soft and blue,
Her sweet ripe lips of rosy hue.

32 She's too foreign in manner, too foreign in dress;

Hogg