| It Is Not Beauty I Demand... George Darley... |
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It is not Beauty I demand, A crystal brow, the moon's despair, Nor the snow's daughter, a white hand, Nor mermaid's yellow pride of hair. |
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Tell me not of your starry eyes, Your lips that seem on roses fed, Your breasts where Cupid trembling lies, Nor sleeps for kissing of his bed. |
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A bloomy pair of vermeil cheeks, Like Hebe's in her ruddiest hours, A breath that softer music speaks Than summer winds a-wooing flowers. |
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These are but gauds; nay, what are lips? Coral beneath the ocean-stream, Whose brink when your adventurer sips Full oft he perisheth on them. |
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And what are cheeks but ensigns oft That wave hot youth to fields of blood? Did Helen's breast though ne'er so soft, Do Greece or Ilium any good? |
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Eyes can with baleful ardor burn, Poison can breath that erst perfumed, There's many a white hand holds an urn With lovers' hearts to dust consumed. |
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For crystal brows- there's naught within, They are but empty cells for pride; He who the Syren's hair would win Is mostly strangled in the tide. |
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Give me, instead of beauty's bust, A tender heart, a loyal mind, Which with temptation I could trust, Yet never linked with error find. |
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One in whose gentle bosom I Could pour my secret heart of woes, Like the care-burdened honey-fly That hides his murmurs in the rose. |
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