The Poetical Works of William Motherwell/True Woman
True Woman.
No quaint conceit of speech,
No golden, minted phrase—
Dame Nature needs to teach
To echo Woman's praise;
Pure love and truth unite
To do thee, Woman, right!
She is the faithful mirror
Of thoughts that brightest be—
Of feelings without error,
Of matchless constancie;
When art essays to render
More glorious Heaven's bow—
To paint the virgin splendour
Of fresh-fallen mountain snow—
New fancies will I find,
To laud true Woman's mind.
No words can lovelier make
Virtue's all-lovely name,
No change can ever shake
A woman's virtuous fame:
The moon is forth anew,
Though envious clouds endeavour
To screen her from our view—
More beautiful than ever:
So, through detraction's haze,
True Woman shines alwaies.
The many-tinted Rose,
Of gardens is the queen,
The perfumed Violet knows
No peer where she is seen—
The flower of woman-kind
Is aye a gentle mind.