Thomas Urquhart (Томас Эркарт)

Epigrams. The Second Booke. № 5. That a vertuous mind in a deformed body maketh one more beautifull, then a handsome body can doe, endowed with a vicious mind

EXternal comelinesse few have obtain'd
Without their hurt; it never made one chast▪
But many'adulterers: and is sustain'd
By qualities, which age, and sicknesse waste▪
But that, whose lustre doth the mind adorne,
Surpasseth farre the beauty of the bodie;
For that, we make our selves: to this, we're borne▪
This, onely comes by chance: but that by study;
Jt is by vertue then, that wee enjoy
Deservedly the stile of beautifull,
Which neither time, nor Fortune can destroy;
And the deformed body, a faire soule
From dust to glory everlasting caries:
While vicious soules in handsome bodies perish.

Thomas Urquhart’s other poems:

  1. Epigrams. The Third Booke. № 36. Of Death, and Sin
  2. Epigrams. The Third Booke. № 23. Of foure things, in an epalleled way vanquished each by other
  3. Epigrams. The Third Booke. № 19. The Parallel of Nature, and For∣tune
  4. Epigrams. The Second Booke. № 13. What the subject of your conference ought to be with men of judgment, and account
  5. Epigrams. The Third Booke. № 3. We ought always to thinke upon what we are to say, before we utter any thing; the speeches and talk of solid wits, being still pre∣meditated, and never using to forerunne the mind

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