Astrophil and Stella
Song 6
O you that hear this voice,
O you that see this face,
Say whether of the choice
Deserves the former place:
Fear not to judge this bate,
For it is void of hate.
This side doth beauty take.
For that doth music speak;
Fit orators to make
The strongest judgements weak:
The bar to plead their right
Is only true delight.
Thus doth the voice and face,
These gentle lawyers, wage,
Like loving brothers' case,
For father's heritage;
That each, while each contends,
Itself to other lends.
For beauty beautifies
With heavenly hew and grace
The heavenly harmonies;
And in this faultless face
The perfect beauties be
A perfect harmony.
Music more loftly swells
In speeches nobly placed;
Beauty as far excels,
In action aptly graced:
A friend each party draws
To countenance his cause.
Love more affected seems
To beauty's lovely light;
And wonder more esteems
Of music's wondrous might;
But both to both so bent,
As both in both are spent.
Music doth witness call
The ear his truth to try;
Beauty brings to the hall
The judgement of the eye:
Both in their objects such,
As no exceptions touch.
The common sense, which might
Be arbiter of this,
To be, forsooth, upright,
To both sides partial is;
He lays on this chief praise,
Chief praise on that he lays.
Then reason, princess high,
Whose throne is in the mind,
Which music can in sky
And hidden beauties find,
Say whether thou wilt crown
With limitless renown?
Sir Philip Sidney
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