Edward Herbert(1582–1648)
Sonnet of Black Beauty
Black beauty, which above that common light,
Whose power can no colors here renew
But those which darkness can again subdue,
Do'st still remain unvary'd to the sight,
And like an object equal to the view,
Art neither chang'd with day, nor hid with night;
When all these colors which the world call bright,
And which old poetry doth so persue,
Are with the night to perished and gone,
That of their being there remains no mark,
Thou still abidest so entirely one,
That we may know thy blackness is a spark
Of light inaccessible, and alone
Our darkness which can make us think it dark.1
1665