Text of the Day
A Brief Introduction
On a daily basis (or as often as I return to my web page), as a form of meditation and study, I like to visit a little-known and relatively inaccessible poem from the English Renaissance. The idea is to offer the poem and a brief commentary to a readership who might not otherwise have access to them. The commentary is by no means exhaustive and it can be idiosyncratic, but that I believe is the most attractive feature the Text of the Day. For the moment, I have decided to concentrate on sonnets from the 1590s. They offer ideal scope for quotidian meditation.
March 20, 1996
Commentary and Glossary Notes
The Day Before's Text
Sonnet (22)
Jos(h)ua(h) Sylvester
Thou art not fair for all thy red and white,
For all those rosie temp’ratures in thee;
Thou art not sweet, though made of meer delight;
Nore faire, nor sweet, unless thou pity mee:
Thine eyes are black, and yet their glistring brightnesse
Can night illumine in her darkest denne:
Thy hands are bloudy, yet compact of whiteness,
Both black and bloudy, if they murther men;
Thy brow whereon my fortune doth depend,
Fairer than snow, or the most lilly thing;
Thy tongue which saves at every sweet word’s end,
That hard as marble, This a mortall sting.
I will not sooth thy follies: thou shalt prove,
That beauty is no beauty without love.
(1592-1608?)