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A continuing selection of classic and contemporary poems.

Silvia

William Shakespeare

Who is Silvia? What is she?
  That all our swains commend her?
Holy, fair, and wise is she;
  The heaven such grace did lend her,
That she might admirèd be.

Is she kind as she is fair?
  For beauty lives with kindness:
Love doth to her eyes repair,
  To help him of his blindness;
And, being help’d, inhabits there.

Then to Silvia let us sing,
  That Silvia is excelling;
She excels each mortal thing
  Upon the dull earth dwelling:
To her let us garlands bring.
Online text © 1998-2008 Poetry X. All rights reserved.
From The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250-1900 | Clarendon, 1919
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