What shepherd can express
The favour of her face
To whom, in this distress,
I do appeal for grace?
A thousand Cupids fly
About her gentle eye;
From which each throws a dart,
That kindleth soft sweet fire
Within my sighing heart,
Possessed by desire:
No sweeter life I try
Than in her love to die!
The lily in the field,
That glories in his white,
For pureness now must yield
And render up his right;
Heaven pictured in her face
Doth promise joy and grace.
Fair Cynthia's silver light,
That beats on running streams,
Compares not with her white,
Whose hairs are all sunbeams:
So bright my Nymph doth shine
As day unto my eyne!
With this, there is a red,
Exceeds the damask-rose,
Which in her cheeks is spread,
Where every favour grows;
In sky there is no star,
But she surmounts it far.
When Phoebus from the bed
Of Thetis doth arise,
The morning, blushing red,
In fair carnation-wise,
He shows in my Nymph's face,
As Queen of every grace.
This pleasant lily-white,
This taint of roseate red,
This Cynthia's silver light,
This sweet fair Dea spread,
These sunbeams in mine eye,
These beauties, make me die!
Edward Vere, Earl of Oxford.