Request to his Love to join Bounty with Beauty. Songs and Sonnets. Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey. 1880. The Poetical Works

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Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517–47). The Poetical Works. 1880.

Songs and Sonnets

Request to his Love to join Bounty with Beauty


THE GOLDEN gift that Nature did thee give,
To fasten friends and feed them at thy will,
With form and favour, taught me to believe,
How thou art made to shew her greatest skill.
Whose hidden virtues are not so unknown,	5
But lively dooms 1 might gather at the first
Where beauty so her perfect seed hath sown,
Of other graces follow needs there must.
Now certes, Garret, 2 since all this is true,
That from above thy gifts are thus elect,	10
Do not deface them then with fancies new;
Nor change of minds, let not the mind infect:
But mercy him thy friend that doth thee serve;
Who seeks alway thine honour to preserve.

Note 1. Judgments. [back]

Note 2. Dr. Nott observes, “The first quarto and all the other editions, except the second and third quartos, read ‘Now certes, Lady.’ Why the genuine reading given in the text should have ever been suppressed it is difficult to say. The Fitz-Gerald family almost always wrote their name Garret. The Fair Geraldine, when attending on the Princess Mary, was always called Garret: and she herself in her Will designates her sister, the Lady Margaret Fitz-Gerald, ‘The Lady Margaret Garret.’” [back]

CONTENTS · BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

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