The matchless Ganymed, divinely fair.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): The Iliad of Homer. Book xx. Line 278.

If thou would'st view fair Melrose aright,

Go visit it by the pale moonlight.

Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832): Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto ii. Stanza 1.

Her face, oh call it fair, not pale!

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834): Christabel. Part ii.

Nor knowest thou what argument

Thy life to thy neighbor's creed has lent.

All are needed by each one;

Nothing is fair or good alone.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882): Each and All.

All the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players.

They have their exits and their entrances;

And one man in his time plays many parts,

His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,

Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.

And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel

And shining morning face, creeping like snail

Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,

Sighing like furnace, with a woful ballad

Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,

Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard;

Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,

Seeking the bubble reputation

Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,

In fair round belly with good capon lined,

With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,

Full of wise saws and modern instances;

And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts

Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,

With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;

His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide

For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,

Turning again toward childish treble, pipes

And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,

That ends this strange eventful history,

Is second childishness and mere oblivion,

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): As You Like It. Act ii. Sc. 7.

Here rests his head upon the lap of earth,

A youth to fortune and to fame unknown:

Fair Science frown'd not on his humble birth,

And Melancholy mark'd him for her own.

Thomas Gray (1716-1771): The Epitaph.

Ful wel she sange the service devine,

Entuned in hire nose ful swetely;

And Frenche she spake ful fayre and fetisly,

After the scole of Stratford atte bowe,

For Frenche of Paris was to hire unknowe.

Geoffrey Chaucer (1328-1400): Canterbury Tales. Prologue. Line 122.

Exceeding fair she was not; and yet fair

In that she never studied to be fairer

Than Nature made her; beauty cost her nothing,

Her virtues were so rare.

George Chapman (1557-1634): All Fools. Act i. Sc. 1.

Such is the aspect of this shore;

'T is Greece, but living Greece no more!

So coldly sweet, so deadly fair,

We start, for soul is wanting there.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: The Giaour. Line 90.

Calm on the bosom of thy God,

Fair spirit, rest thee now!

John Keble (1792-1866): Siege of Valencia. Scene ix.

He was a scholar, and a ripe and good one;

Exceeding wise, fair-spoken, and persuading;

Lofty and sour to them that loved him not,

But to those men that sought him sweet as summer.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry VIII. Act iv. Sc. 2.

What is your sex's earliest, latest care,

Your heart's supreme ambition? To be fair.

Lord Lyttleton (1709-1773): Advice to a Lady.

Go, lovely rose!

Tell her that wastes her time and me

That now she knows,

When I resemble her to thee,

How sweet and fair she seems to be.

Edmund Waller (1605-1687): Go, Lovely Rose.

The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem

For that sweet odour which doth in it live.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Sonnet liv.

Lightly from fair to fair he flew,

And loved to plead, lament, and sue;

Suit lightly won, and short-lived pain,

For monarchs seldom sigh in vain.

Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832): Marmion. Canto v. Stanza 9.

Too fair to worship, too divine to love.

Henry Hart Milman (1791-1868): The Belvedere Apollo.

Fair tresses man's imperial race insnare,

And beauty draws us with a single hair.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): The Rape of the Lock. Canto ii. Line 27.

O fair undress, best dress! it checks no vein,

But every flowing limb in pleasure drowns,

And heightens ease with grace.

James Thomson (1700-1748): The Castle of Indolence. Canto i. Stanza 26.

If she undervalue me,

What care I how fair she be?

Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618): Poem.

Shall I, wasting in despair,

Die because a woman's fair?

Or make pale my cheeks with care,

'Cause another's rosy are?

Be she fairer than the day,

Or the flowery meads in May,

If she be not so to me,

What care I how fair she be?

George Wither (1588-1667): The Shepherd's Resolution.

There was a sound of revelry by night,

And Belgium's capital had gather'd then

Her beauty and her chivalry, and bright

The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men.

A thousand hearts beat happily; and when

Music arose with its voluptuous swell,

Soft eyes look'd love to eyes which spake again,

And all went merry as a marriage bell.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iii. Stanza 21.

It hurteth not the toung to give faire words.

John Heywood (Circa 1565): Proverbes. Part i. Chap. ix.

Take her up tenderly,

Lift her with care;

Fashioned so slenderly,

Young, and so fair!

Thomas Hood (1798-1845): The Bridge of Sighs.

By the margin of fair Zurich's waters

Dwelt a youth, whose fond heart, night and day,

For the fairest of fair Zurich's daughters

In a dream of love melted away.

Charles Dance (1794-1863): Fair Zurich's Waters.