A collection of poetry of the sort which inspired the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood to paint.

She walks in beauty - Lord Byron
She walks in beauty, like the night,
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:

Cherry Ripe - Thomas Campion
There is a garden in her face,
Where roses and white lilies grow;
A heavenly paradise is that place,
Wherein all pleasant fruits do flow.

The Spring - Abraham Cowley
Wherever you did walk or sit
The thickest boughs culd make no shade,
Although the sun had granted it;
The fairest flowers could please no more, near you,
Than painted flowers sat next to them could do.

Corinna's Going a-Maying - Robert Herrick
Rise and put on your foliage, and be seen
To come forth, like the spring-time, fresh and green,
As sweet as Flora. Take no care
For jewels for your gown or hair:
Fear not; the leaves will strew
Gems in abundance upon you:

Woman! when I behold thee - John Keats
Light feet, dark violet eyes, and parted hair,
Soft dimpled hands, white neck and creamy breast,
Are things on which the dazzled senses rest
Till the fond, fixed eyes, forget they stare.

To His Coy Mistress - Andrew Marvell
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine Eyes and on thy Forehead Gaze.
Two hundred to adore each Breast:
But thirty thousand to the rest.
An age at least to every part,
And the last Age should show your Heart.
For Lady you deserve this State;
Nor would I love at lower rate.

The Keepsake - W. M. Praed
Lady, there's fragrance in your sigs,
And sunlight in your glances;
I never saw such lips and eyes
In pictures or romances;
And love will readily suppose,
To make you quite enslaving,
That you have taste for verse and prose,
Hot pressed, and line engraving.

The Faerie Queene - Edmund Spenser
Her angel's face
As the great eye of heaven shined bright,
And made a sunshine in the shady place;
Did never mortal eye behold such heavenly grace.

Epithalamion - Edmund Spenser
So sweet, so louely, and so mild as she,
Adornd with beautyes grace and vertues store
Her goodly eyes lyke Saphyres shining bright,
Her forehead Yuory white,
Her cheekes lyke apples which the sun hath rudded,
Her lips lyke cherryes charming men to byte,

An Hymne In Honour Of Beautie - Edmund Spenser
...beautie is not, as fond men misdeeme,
An outward shew of things, that onely seem.
For that same goodly hew of white and red,
With which the cheekes are sprinckled, shal decay,
And those sweete rosy leaues so fairely spred
Vpon the lips shall fade and fall away
To that they were, euen to corrupted clay.
That golden wyre, those sparckling stars so bright
Shall turne to dust, and loose their goodly light.
But that faire lampe, from whose celestiall ray
That light proceedes, which kindleth louers fire,
Shall neuer be extinguisht nor decay.

The Lady of Shallot - Lord Tennyson

My Beautiful Lady - Thomas Woolner
I love my lady; she is very fair;
Her brow is white, and bound by simple hair;
Her spirit sits aloof and high
Although it looks thro' her soft eye
Sweetly and tenderly.


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