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THE SHEPHERD'S COMMENDATION OF HIS NYMPH, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: What shepherd can express
Last Line: These beauties make me die.
Alternate Author Name(s): Bulbeck, Lord; Oxford, 17th Earl Of; Vere, Edward De
Subject(s): Beauty


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.





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