BEAUTY.
Is she not passing fair?
Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act iv. Sc. 4. SHAKESPEARE.
And she is fair, and fairer than that word.
Merchant of Venice, Act i. Sc. 1. SHAKESPEARE.
Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold.
As You Like It, Act i. Sc. 3. SHAKESPEARE.
Old as I am, for ladies' love unfit,
The power of beauty I remember yet.
Cymon and Iphigenia. J. DRYDEN.
Her beauty hangs upon the cheek of night
Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear.
Romeo and Juliet, Act i. Sc. 5. SHAKESPEARE.
A rosebud set with little wilful thorns.
And sweet as English air could make her, she.
The Princess. A. TENNYSON.
Thou who hast
The fatal gift of beauty.
Childe Harold, Canto IV. LORD BYRON.
Yet I'll not shed her blood;
Nor soar that whiter skin of hers than snow,
And smooth as monumental alabaster.
Othello, Act v. Sc. 2. SHAKESPEARE.
No longer shall thy bodice, aptly laced.
From thy full bosom to thy slender waist,
That air and harmony of shape express,
Fine by degrees, and beautifully less.
Henry and Emma. M. PRIOR.
The beautiful are never desolate;
But some one always loves them—God or man.
If man abandons, God himself takes them.
Festus: Sc. Water and Wood. P.J. BAILEY.
There's nothing that allays an angry mind
So soon as a sweet beauty.
The Elder Brother, Act iii. Sc. 5. BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.
The beautiful seems right
By force of beauty, and the feeble wrong
Because of weakness.
Aurora Leigh. E.B. BROWNING.
How near to good is what is fair,
Which we no sooner see,
But with the lines and outward air
Our senses taken be.
We wish to see it still, and prove
What ways we may deserve;
We court, we praise, we more than love,
We are not grieved to serve.
Love Freed from Ignorance and Folly. B. JONSON.
There's nothing ill can dwell in such a temple:
If the ill spirit have so fair a house,
Good things will strive to dwell with't.
Tempest, Act i. Sc. 2. SHAKESPEARE.
A daughter of the gods, divinely tall.
And most divinely fair.
A Dream of Fair Women. A. TENNYSON.
Beauty is Nature's coin, must not be hoarded.
But must be current, and the good thereof
Consists in mutual and partaken bliss.
Unsavory in th' enjoyment of itself:
If you let slip time, like a neglected rose,
It withers on the stalk with languished head.
Comus. MILTON.
Thoughtless of beauty, she was Beauty's self.
The Seasons: Autumn. J. THOMSON.
In beauty, faults conspicuous grow;
The smallest speck is seen on snow.
Fables: Peacock, Turkey, and Goose. J. GAY.
The maid who modestly conceals
Her beauties, while she hides, reveals:
Gives but a glimpse, and fancy draws
Whate'er the Grecian Venus was.
The Spider and the Bee. E. MOORE.
Beauty is but a vain and doubtful good;
A shining gloss that vadeth suddenly;
A flower that dies when first it 'gins to bud;
A brittle glass that 's broken presently;
A doubtful good, a gloss, a glass, a flower,
Lost, vaded, broken, dead within an hour.
The Passionate Pilgrim. SHAKESPEARE.