The ornament of beauty is suspect,
A crow that flies in heaven’s sweetest air.[146]
The simile is sometimes reversed, as where Romeo, on seeing Juliet for the first time, exclaims:
Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!
So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows,
As yonder lady o’er her fellows shows.[147]
Although it is usually with the dove that the contrast is drawn, another bird is sometimes chosen:
The crow may bathe his coal-black wings in mire,
And unperceiv’d fly with the filth away;
But if the like the snow-white swan desire,