Of His Mistress.

(After Anthony Hamilton.)

To G. S.


She that I love is neither brown nor fair,
And, in a word her worth to say,
There is no maid that with her may
Compare.

Yet of her charms the count is clear, I ween:
There are five hundred things we see,
And then five hundred too there be,
Not seen.

Her wit, her wisdom are direct from Heaven:
But the sweet Graces from their store
A thousand finer touches more
Have given.

Her cheek's warm dye what painter's brush could note?
Beside her Flora would be wan
And white as whiteness of the swan
Her throat.

Her supple waist, her arm from Venus came,
Hebe her nose and lip confess,
And, looking in her eyes, you guess
Her name.

Henry Austin Dobson

Henry Austin Dobson, commonly known as Austin Dobson, was an English poet and essayist. A civil servant by profession, Dobson was one of the most renowned poets and literary critics of the late Victorian and Edwardian periods. His work is noted for its delicate craftsmanship and profound interest in 18th-century literature. Dobson's poetry often revisited and celebrated historical themes and characters, blending scholarly interest with lyrical form.

Henry Austin Dobson

Dialogue From Plato, A

Henry Austin Dobson, Simple Poetry

A Love-Song.

Henry Austin Dobson, Simple Poetry

The Two Painters.

Henry Austin Dobson, Simple Poetry

In The Royal Academy.

Henry Austin Dobson, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

The Ladies Of St. James's.

A Proper New Ballad Of The Country And The Town.

"Phyllida amo ante alias."
Virg.


The ladies of St. James's
Go swinging to the play;
Their footmen run before them,
With a "Stand by! Clear the way!"
But Phyllida, my Phyllida!
She takes her buckled shoon,
When we go out a-courting
Beneath the harvest moon.

The ladies of St. James's
Wear satin on their backs;
They sit all night at Ombre,
With candles all of wax:
But Phyllida, my Phyllida!
She dons her russet gown,
And runs to gather May dew
Before the world is down.

The ladies of St. James's!
They are so fine and fair,
You'd think a box of essences
Was broken in the air:
But Phyllida, my Phyllida!
The breath of heath and furze,
When breeze...

Henry Austin Dobson

Premiers Amours.

Old Loves and old dreams,--
"Requiescant in pace."
How strange now it seems,--
"Old" Loves and "old" dreams!
Yet we once wrote you reams
Maude, Alice, and Gracie!
Old Loves and old dreams,--
"Requiescant in pace."


When I called at the "Hollies" to-day,
In the room with the cedar-wood presses,
Aunt Deb. was just folding away
What she calls her "memorial dresses."

She'd the frock that she wore at fifteen,--
Short-waisted, of course--my abhorrence;
She'd "the loveliest"--something in "een"
That she wears in her portrait by Lawrence;

She'd the "jelick" she used--"as a Greek," (!)
She'd the habit she got her bad fall in;
She had e'en the blue moiré antique
That she opened Squire Grasshopper's ball in:--

New and old ...

Henry Austin Dobson

André Le Chapelain.

(Clerk of Love, 1170.)

His Plaint To Venus Of The Coming Years.

"Plus ne suis ce que j'ay esté
Et ne le sçaurois jamais estre;
Mon beau printemps et mon esté
Ont fait le saut par la fenestre."


Queen Venus, round whose feet,
To tend thy sacred fire,
With service bitter-sweet
Nor youths nor maidens tire;--
Goddess, whose bounties be
Large as the un-oared sea;--

Mother, whose eldest born
First stirred his stammering tongue,
In the world's youngest morn,
When the first daisies sprung:--
Whose last, when Time shall die,
In the same grave shall lie:--

Hear thou one suppliant more!
Must I, thy Bard, grow old,
Bent, with the temples frore,
Not jocund be nor bold,
To tune for folk in May
Ballad and ...

Henry Austin Dobson

A Story From A Dictionary.

"Sic visum Veneri: cui placet impares
Formas atque animos sub juga aënea
Saevo mittere cum joco."
--Hor. i. 33.


"Love mocks us all"--as Horace said of old:
From sheer perversity, that arch-offender
Still yokes unequally the hot and cold,
The short and tall, the hardened and the tender;
He bids a Socrates espouse a scold,
And makes a Hercules forget his gender:--
Sic visum Veneri! Lest samples fail,
I add a fresh one from the page of BAYLE.

It was in Athens that the thing occurred,
In the last days of Alexander's rule,
While yet in Grove or Portico was heard
The studious murmur of its learned school;--
Nay, 'tis one favoured of Minerva's bird
Who plays therein the hero (or the fool)
With a Megarian, who must then have been
A mai...

Henry Austin Dobson

A Sweet Contention between Love, his Mistress, and Beauty

Love and my mistress were at strife
    Who had the greatest power on me:
Betwixt them both, oh, what a life!
    Nay, what a death is this to be!

She said, she did it with her eye;
    He said, he did it with his dart;
Betwixt them both (a silly wretch!)
    'Tis I that have the wounded heart.

She said, she only spake the word
    That did enchant my peering sense;
He said, he only gave the sound
    That enter'd heart without defence.

She said, her beauty was the mark
    That did amaze the highest mind;
He said, he only made the mist
    Whereby the senses grew so blind.

She said, that only for her sake,
    The best would venture life and limb:
He said, she was too much deceiv'd;
    They honour'd her because of him.<...

Nicholas Breton

Her Right Name

As Nancy at her toilette sat,
Admiring this, and blaming that,
Tell me, she said, but tell me true,
The nymph who could your heart subdue.
What sort of charms does she possess?
Absolve me, fair one, I'll confess
With pleasure, I replied: Her hair,
In ringlets rather dark than fair,
Does down her ivory bosom roll,
And hiding half adorns the whole,
In her high forehead's fair half round
Love sits, in open triumph crown'd;
He, in the dimple of her chin,
In private state, by friends is seen.
Her eyes are neither black nor grey,
Nor fierce nor feeble is their ray;
Their dubious lustre seems to show
Something that speaks nor yes nor no.
Her lips no living bard, I weet,
May say how red, how round, how sweet:
Old Homer only could indite
Their ...

Matthew Prior