Squire Adam had two wives, they say, Two wives had he, for his delight, He kissed and clypt them all the day And clypt and kissed them all the night. Now Eve like ocean foam was white And Lilith roses dipped in wine, But though they were a goodly sight No lady is so fair as mine. To Venus some folk tribute pay And Queen of Beauty she is hight, And Sainte Marie the world doth sway In cerule napery bedight. My wonderment these twain invite, Their comeliness it is divine, And yet I say in their despite, No lady is so fair as mine. Dame Helen caused a grievous fray, For love of her brave men did fight, The eyes of her made sages fey And put their hearts in woeful plight. To her no rhymes will I indite, For her no garlands will I twine, Though she be made of flowers and light No lady is so fair as mine. L'Envoi Prince Eros, Lord of lovely might, Who on Olympus dost recline, Do I not tell the truth aright? No lady is so fair as mine. Grieve not, Ladies. [Anna Hempstead Branch] Oh, grieve not, Ladies, if at night Ye wake to feel your beauty going. It was a web of frail delight, Inconstant as an April snowing. In other eyes, in other lands, In deep fair pools, new beauty lingers, But like spent water in your hands It runs from your reluctant fingers. Ye shall not keep the singing lark That owes to earlier skies its duty. Weep not to hear along the dark The sound of your departing beauty. The fine and anguished ear of night Is tuned to hear the smallest sorrow. Oh, wait until the morning light! It may not seem so gone to-morrow! But honey-pale and rosy-red! Brief lights that made a little shining! Beautiful looks about us shed -- They leave us to the old repining. Think not the watchful dim despair Has come to you the first, sweet-hearted! For oh, the gold in Helen's hair! And how she cried when that departed! Perhaps that one that took the most, The swiftest borrower, wildest spender, May count, as we would not, the cost -- And grow more true to us and tender. Happy are we if in his eyes We see no shadow of forgetting. Nay -- if our star sinks in those skies We shall not wholly see its setting. Then let us laugh as do the brooks That such immortal youth is ours, If memory keeps for them our looks As fresh as are the spring-time flowers. Oh, grieve not, Ladies, if at night Ye wake, to feel the cold December! Rather recall the early light And in your loved one's arms, remember. Of Joan's Youth. [Louise Imogen Guiney] I would unto my fair restore A simple thing: The flushing cheek she had before! Out-velveting No more, no more, On our sad shore, The carmine grape, the moth's auroral wing. Ah, say how winds in flooding grass Unmoor the rose; Or guileful ways the salmon pass To sea, disclose: For so, alas, With Love, alas, With fatal, fatal Love a girlhood goes. I shall not care. [Sara Teasdale]