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 sayn, Than doth the sun the candle-light, 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 sealed were; And virtues hath she many mo Than I with pen have skill to show. I could rehearse, if that I wold, The whole effect of Nature's plaint, When she had lost the perfit mould, 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, 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, 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.
