436. Song

Thomas Parnell. 1670-1718


WHEN thy beauty appears
    In its graces and airs
All bright as an angel new dropp'd from the sky,
At distance I gaze and am awed by my fears:
    So strangely you dazzle my eye!

    But when without art
    Your kind thoughts you impart,
When your love runs in blushes through every vein;
When it darts from your eyes, when it pants in your heart,
    Then I know you're a woman again.

    There 's a passion and pride
    In our sex (she replied),
And thus, might I gratify both, I would do:
Still an angel appear to each lover beside,
    But still be a woman to you.

The Oxford Book of English Verse, HTML edition