Clustering, but not beneath his shoulders broad:
She, as a veil down to the slender waist,
Her unadorned golden tresses wore
Dishevelled, but in wanton ringlets waved.
As the vine curls her tendrils — which implied
Subjection, but required with gentle sway,
And by her yielded, by him best received
Yielded, with coy submission, modest pride.

John Milton

The Mother of Marcella

I

THINK I see her now, with that goodly presence, looking as if she had the sun on one side of her and the moon on the other; and above all, she was a notable house-wife, and a friend to the poor; for which I believe her soul is at this very moment in heaven.

Pedro, in "Don Quixote"

A Roman Wife

WOMAN, a word with

you!

Round-ribbed, large-flanked,

Broad-shouldered (God be thanked!)

Face fair and free,

And pleasant for a man to see

I know not whom you love; but - hark! be true.
Partake his honest joys;

Cling to him, grow to him, make noble boys

For Italy.

T. E. Brown

Dame Hester Temple

DAME Hester Temple, daughter to Miles Sands,

Esquire, was born at Latmos in this County; and was married to Sir Thomas Temple of Stow, Baronet. She had four sons and nine daughters, which lived to be married, and so exceedingly multiplied, that this Lady saw seven hundred extracted from her body. Reader, I speak within compass, and have left myself a reserve, having bought the truth hereof by a wager I lost. Besides, there was a new generation of marriageable females just at her death; so that this aged vine may be said to wither, even when it had many young boughs ready to knit.

Had I been one of her Relations, and as well enabled as most of them be, I would have erected a Monument for her, thus designed. A fair tree should have been erected, the said Lady and her Husband lying at the bottom or the root thereof; the Heir of the family should have ascended both the middle and top-bough thereof. On the right-hand hereof her younger sons, on the left her daughters should, as so many boughs, be spread forth. Her grand-children should have their names inscribed on the branches of those boughs; the greatgrand-children on the twiggs of those branches; the great-great-grand-children on the leaves of those twiggs. Such as survived her death should be done in a lively green, the rest (as blasted) in a pale and yellow fading colour.

...

Thus, in all ages, God bestoweth personal felicities on some, far above the proportion of others. The Lady Temple dyed anno Domini 1656.

Thomas Fuller

A Forecast

DEA

EAR Child of Nature, let them rail!
There is a nest in a green dale,

A harbour and a hold;

Where thou, a Wife and Friend, shalt see
Thy own delightful days, and be

A light to young and old.

There, healthy as a Shepherd-boy,
And treading among flowers of joy
Which at no season fade,

Thou, while thy Babes around thee cling,
Shalt show us how divine a thing

A Woman may be made.

Thy thoughts and feelings shall not die,
Nor leave thee, when grey hairs are nigh,
A melancholy slave;

But an old age serene and bright,
And lovely as a Lapland night,

Shall lead thee to thy grave.

W. Wordsworth

George Herbert's Mother

N°

[O spring, nor summer beauty hath such grace
As I have seen in one autumnal face;

Young beauties force our love, and that's a rape ;
This doth but counsel, yet you cannot 'scape.

If 'twere a shame to love, here 'twere no shame;
Affections here take reverence's name.

Were her first years the Golden Age ? that's true,
But now they're gold oft tried, and ever new.

That was her torrid and inflaming time;

This is her tolerable tropic clime.

Fair eyes; who asks more heat than comes from hence,
He in a fever wishes pestilence.

Call not these wrinkles, graves; if graves they were,
They were Love's graves, for else he is nowhere.
Yet lies not Love dead here, but here doth sit,
Vow'd to this trench, like [to] an anchorite,
And here, till hers, which must be his death, come.
He doth not dig a grave, but build a tomb.
Here dwells he; though he sojourns everywhere
In progress, yet his standing house is here;
Here, where still evening is, not noon, nor night;
Where no voluptuousness, yet all delight.
In all her words, unto all hearers fit,
You may at revels, you at council, sit.
This is love's timber; youth his underwood;
There he, as wine in June, enrages blood;
Which then comes seasonablest when our taste
And appetite to other things is past.

Xerxes' strange Lydian love, the platane tree,
Was lov'd for age, none being so large as she;
Or else because, being young, nature did bless
Her youth with age's glory, barrenness.
If we love things long sought, age is a thing
Which we are fifty years in compassing;
If transitory things, which soon decay,
Age must be loveliest at the latest day.
But name not winter faces, who skins slack,
Lank as an unthrift's purse, but a soul's sack;

Whose eyes seek light within; for all here's shade;
Whose mouths are holes, rather worn out, than made;
Whose every tooth to a several place is gone,

To vex their souls at resurrection;

Name not these living death-heads unto me,
For these, not ancient, but antique be.
I hate extremes; yet I had rather stay
With tombs than cradles, to wear out a day.
Since such love's motion natural is, may still
My love descend, and journey down the hill.
Not panting after growing beauties; so
I shall ebb out with them who homeward go.
John Donne

Susanna Wesley (by epistolary illumination)

EPWORTH, July 24th, 1732

EAR SON,- According to your desire, I have collected the principal rules I observed in educating my family.

...

The children were always put into a regular method of living, in such things as they were capable of, from