Classic Poem

Stateliness and elegance:
But a kindness in her glance
Gives a lover heart of grace
To appraise her lovely face.
Therefore, though she may not know it,
Sings her humblest, mildest poet
Whom the thought of her makes strong
Thus to challenge with a song,
Challenge Venus' whole entourage
By the virtue of the courage
That her gracefulness engenders,
Grace, the crown of beauty's splendours.

If that young Idalian lout,
When the apple went about
Only had the rare good luck
On her loveliness to look,
What a row there would have been
For, if he had only seen
All the ecstasies and loves
That her limbs make when she moves,
Venus had not had the pippin,
Nor would he have had the strippin'
Of young Leda's swan-white daughter;
Nor had Troy gone down in slaughter.

Paris lived too soon to see
All the sights that ravish me.
I am left alone to grapple
With my love without an apple:
So I sing by her inspired,
Her whose beauty when attired
By good taste can well outdo
All that nude Idalian crew
And still hide sweets; for more, I wis,
The body than the raiment is.