Classic Poem

Sitting, and ready to be drawn,
What makes these velvets, silks, and lawn,
Embroideries, feathers, fringes, lace,
Where every limb takes like a face?

Send these suspected helps, to aid
Some form defective, or decayed;
This beauty, without falsehood fair,
Needs naught to clothe it but the air,

Yet something, to the painter's view,
Were fitly interposed; so new
He shall, if he can understand,
Work with my fancy, his own hand.

Draw first a cloud: all save her neck;
And, out of that, make day to break;
Till, like her face, it do appear,
And men may think, all light rose there.

Then let the beams of that, disperse
The cloud, and show the universe;
But at such distance, as the eye
May rather yet adore, than spy.

The heaven designed, draw next a spring,
With all that youth, or it can bring:
Four rivers branching forth like seas,
And paradise confining these.

Last, draw the circles of this globe,
And let there be a starry robe
Of constellations 'bout her hurled;
And thou hast painted beauty's world.

But, painter, see thou do not sell
A copy of this piece; nor tell
Whose 'tis: but if it favour find,
Next sitting we will draw her mind.