Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, HER RIGHT NAME, by MATTHEW PRIOR


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

HER RIGHT NAME, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: As nancy at her toilet sat
Last Line: Your chloe, or your nut-brown maid?'
Subject(s): Beauty; Homer (10th Century B.c.); Lavatories; Love; Nymphs; Poetry & Poets; Iliad; Odyssey; Toilets


As Nancy at her toilet 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 crowned:
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 vagrant grace and soft delight:
They stand recorded in his book,
When Helen smiled, and Hebe spoke'--
The gipsy, turning to her glass,
Too plainly showed she knew the face:
'And which am I most like,' she said,
'Your Chloe, or your nut-brown maid?'





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