Rhyme For A Child Viewing A Naked Venus In A Painting Of 'The Judgement Of Paris'

When Kneller's works, of various grace,
Were to fair Venus shown,
The Goddess spied in every face
Some features of her own.

Just so, (and pointing with her hand)
So shone, says she, my eyes,
When from two goddesses I gain'd
An apple for a prize.

When in the glass and river too
My face I lately view'd,
Such was I, if the glass be true,
If true the crystal flood.

In colours of this glorious kind
Apelles painted me;
My hair, thus flowing with the wind
Sprung from my native sea.

Like this disorder'd, wild, forlorn,
Big with ten thousand fears,
Thee, my Adonis, did I mourn
E'en beautiful in tears.

But viewing Myra placed apart,
I fear, says she, I fear,
Appelles, that Sir Godfrey's art
Has far surpass...

She. Yet womanhood you reverence,
So you profess!

He. With heart and soul.

She. Of which fact this is evidence!
To help Art-study, for some dole
Of certain wretched shillings, you
Induce a woman, virgin too
To strip and stand stark-naked?

He. True.

She. Nor feel you so degrade her?

He. What
(Excuse the interruption), clings
Half-savage-like around your hat?

She. Ah, do they please you? Wild-bird-wings!
Next season, Paris-prints assert,
We must go feathered to the skirt:
My modiste keeps on the alert.
Owls, hawks, jays, swallows most approve.

He. Dare I speak plainly?

She. Oh, I trust!

He. Then, Lady Blanche, it less wo...

'Tis the witching hour of night,
Orbed is the moon and bright,
And the stars they glisten, glisten,
Seeming with bright eyes to listen,
For what listen they?
For a song and for a charm,
See they glisten in alarm,
And the moon is waxing warm
To hear what I shall say.
Moon! keep wide thy golden ears,
Hearken, stars! and hearken, spheres!
Hearken, thou eternal sky!
I sing an infant's lullaby,
A pretty lullaby.
Listen, listen, listen, listen,
Glisten, glisten, glisten, glisten,
And hear my lullaby!
Though the rushes that will make
Its cradle still are in the lake,
Though the linen that will be
Its swathe, is on the cotton tree,
Though the woollen that will keep
It warm, is on the silly sheep,
Listen, starlight, listen, listen,

If one could have that little head of hers
Painted upon a background of pale gold,
Such as the Tuscan’s early art prefers!
No shade encroaching on the matchless mould
Of those two lips, which should be opening soft
In the pure profile; not as when she laughs,
For that spoils all: but rather as if aloft
Yon hyacinth, she loves so, leaned its staff’s
Burthen of honey-coloured buds to kiss
And capture ’twist the lips apart for this.
Then her lithe neck, three fingers might surround,
How it should waver on the, pale gold ground
Up to the fruit-shaped, perfect chin it lifts!
I know, Correggio loves to mass, in rifts
Of heaven, his angel faces, orb on orb
Breaking its outline, burning shades absorb:
But these are only massed there, I should think,
Waiting to se...

Rose-bosom'd and rose-limb'd
With eyes of dazzling bright
Shakes Venus mid the twinèd boughs of the night;
Rose-limb'd, soft-stepping
From low bough to bough
Shaking the wide-hung starry fruitage--dimmed
Its bloom of snow
By that sole planetary glow.

Venus, avers the astronomer,
Not thus idly dancing goes
Flushing the eternal orchard with wild rose.
She through ether burns
Outpacing planetary earth,
And ere two years triumphantly returns,
And again wave-like swelling flows,
And again her flashing apparition comes and goes.

This we have not seen,
No heavenly courses set,
No flight unpausing through a void serene:
But when eve clears,
Arises Venus as she first uprose
Stepping the shaken boughs among,
And in her bosom glo...

When Cloe's Picture was to Venus shown;
Surpriz'd, the Goddess took it for Her own.
And what, said She, does this bold Painter mean?
When was I Bathing thus, and Naked seen?

Pleas'd Cupid heard, and check'd His Mother's Pride:
And who's blind now, Mamma? the Urchin cry'd.
'Tis Cloe's Eye, and Cheek, and Lip, and Breast:
Friend Howard's Genius fancy'd all the rest.