But from my own sweet lady-love my inspiration springs.
If in resplendent purple robe of Cos my darling dresses,
I’ll fill a portly volume with the Coan garments’ praise;
Or if her truant tresses wreathe her forehead with caresses,
The tresses of her queenly brow demand her poet’s lays.”
In another elegy he describes his Cynthia’s charms:—
“’Twas not her face, though fair, so smote my eye
(Less fair the lily than my love: as snows
Of Scythia with Iberian vermeil vie;
As float in milk the petals of the rose);