Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Baron George Gordon Byron Byron

And in the horrid phalanx dare to move,

       'Tis but the tender fierceness of the dove,

       Pecking the hand that hovers o'er her mate:

       In softness as in firmness far above

       Remoter females, famed for sickening prate;

      Her mind is nobler sure, her charms perchance as great.

      LVIII.

      The seal Love's dimpling finger hath impressed

       Denotes how soft that chin which bears his touch:

       Her lips, whose kisses pout to leave their nest,

       Bid man be valiant ere he merit such:

       Her glance, how wildly beautiful! how much

       Hath Phoebus wooed in vain to spoil her cheek

       Which glows yet smoother from his amorous clutch!

       Who round the North for paler dames would seek?

      How poor their forms appear? how languid, wan, and weak!

      LIX.

      Match me, ye climes! which poets love to laud;

       Match me, ye harems! of the land where now

       I strike my strain, far distant, to applaud

       Beauties that even a cynic must avow!

       Match me those houris, whom ye scarce allow

       To taste the gale lest Love should ride the wind,

       With Spain's dark-glancing daughters—deign to know,

       There your wise Prophet's paradise we find,

      His black-eyed maids of Heaven, angelically kind.

      LX.