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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=539336" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>To a Lady, with Some Coloured Patterns of Flowers</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Madam,-</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Though rude the draughts, though artless seem the lines,<br>From one unskill'd in verse, or in designs;<br>Oft has good-nature been the fool's defence,<br>And honest meaning gilded want of sense.<br>Fear not, though flowers and beauty grace my lay,<br>To praise one fair, another shall decay.<br>No lily, bright with painted foliage, here,<br>Shall only languish, when Selinda's near:<br>A fate reversed no smiling rose shall know,<br>Nor with reflected lustre doubly glow.<br>Praises which languish when applied to you,<br>Where flattering schemes seem obviously true.<br>Yet sure your sex is near to flowers allied,<br>Alike in softness, and alike in pride:<br>Foes to retreat, and ever fond to shine,<br>Both rush to danger, and the shades decline;<br>Exposed, the short-lived pageants of a day,<br>To painted flies or glittering fops a prey:<br>Changed with each wind, nor one short day the same,<br>Each clouded sky affects their tender frame.<br>In glaring Chloe's man-like taste and mien,<br>Are the gross splendours of the tulip seen:<br>Distant they strike, inelegantly gay,<br>To the near view no pleasing charms display.<br>To form the nymph, a vulgar wit must join,<br>As coarser soils will most the flower refine.<br>Ophelia's beauties let the jasmine paint,<br>Too faintly soft, too nicely elegant.<br>Around with seeming sanctity endued,<br>The passion-flower may best express the prude.<br>Like the gay rose, too rigid Silvia shines,<br>While, like its guardian thorn, her virtue joins.<br>Happy the nymph from all their failures free!<br>Happy the nymph in whom their charms agree!<br>Faint these productions, till you bid disclose,<br>The pink new splendours, and fresh tints the rose:<br>And yet condemn not trivial draughts like these,<br>Form'd to improve, and make even trifles please.<br>A power like yours minuter beauties warms,<br>And yet can blast the most aspiring charms:<br>Thus, at the rays whence other objects shine,<br>The taper sickens, and its flames decline.<br>When by your art the purple violet lives,<br>And the pale lily sprightlier charms receives;<br>Garters to me shall glow inferior far,<br>And with less pleasing lustre shine the star.<br>Let serious triflers, fond of wealth or fame,<br>On toils like these bestow too soft a name;<br>Each gentler art with wise indifference view,<br>And scorn one trifle, millions to pursue:<br>More artful I their specious schemes deride<br>Fond to please you, by you in these employed;<br>A nobler task, or more sublime desire,<br>Ambition ne'er could form, nor pride inspire.<br>The sweets of tranquil life and rural ease<br>Amuse securely, nor less justly please.<br>Where gentle pleasure shows her milder power,<br>Or blooms in fruit, or sparkles in the flower;<br>Smiles in the groves, the raptured poet's theme;<br>Flows in the brook, his Naiad of the stream;<br>Dawns, with each happier stroke the pencil gives,<br>And, in each livelier image, smiling lives;<br>Is heard, when Silvia strikes the warbling strings,<br>Selinda speaks, or Philomela sings:<br>Breathes with the morn; attends, propitious maid,<br>The evening ramble, and the noon-day glade<br>Some visionary fair she cheats our view,<br>Then only vigorous when she seems like you.<br>Yet Nature some for sprightlier joys design'd,<br>For brighter scenes, with nicer care, refined.<br>When the gay jewel radiant streams supplies,<br>And vivid brilliants meet your brighter eyes;<br>When dress and pomp around the fancy play,<br>By fortune's dazzling beauties borne away;<br>When theatres for you the scenes forego,<br>And the box bows obsequiously low:<br>How dull the plan which indolence has drawn,<br>The mossy grotto, or the flowery lawn!<br>Though roseate scents in every wind exhale,<br>And sylvan warblers charm in every pale.<br>Of these be hers the choice whom all approve;<br>And whom but those who envy, all must love:<br>By nature modell'd, by experience taught,<br>To know and pity every female fault:<br>Pleased even to hear her sex's virtues shown,<br>And blind to none's perfections but her own:<br>Whilst, humble fair! of these too few she knows,<br>Yet owns too many for the world's repose;<br>From wit's wild petulance serenely free,<br>Yet blest in all that nature can decree.<br>Not like a fire, which, whilst it burns, alarms;<br>A modest flame, that gently shines and warms:<br>Whose mind, in every light, can charms display,<br>With wisdom serious, and with humour gay;<br>Just as her eyes in each bright posture warm,<br>And fiercely strike, or languishingly charm:<br>Such are your honours-mention'd to your cost,<br>Those least can hear them, who deserve them most:<br>Yet ah! forgive-the less inventive muse,<br>If e'er she sing, a copious theme must choose.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=William+Shenstone">William Shenstone</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=539336" data-title="To a Lady, with Some Coloured Patterns of Flowers de William Shenstone" data-description="Madam,-

Though rude the draughts, though artless seem the lines,
From one unskill'd in verse, or in designs;
Oft has good-nature been the fool's defence,
And honest meaning gilded want of sense.
Fear not, though flowers and beauty grace my lay,
T..."></div>
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