Desires what it hath not, the beautiful?[Footnote: _The Sensitive
Plant_.]

Spenser himself foresaw our objections and felt obliged to modify his
pronouncement, admitting--

Yet oft it falls that many a gentle mind
Dwells in deformed tabernacle drownd,
Either by chance, against the course of kind,
Or through unaptness of the substance found,
Which it assumed of some stubborn ground
That will not yield unto her form's direction,
But is preformed with some foul imperfection.

But the modern poet is not likely to yield his point so easily as does
Spenser. Rather he will cast aside historical records as spurious, and
insist that all genuine poets have been beautiful. Of the many poems on
Sappho written in the last century, not one accepts the tradition that
she was ill-favored, but restores a flower-like portrait of her from
Alcaeus' line,

Violet-weaving, pure, sweet-smiling Sappho.

As for Shakespeare, here follows a very characteristic idealization of
his extant portrait:

A pale, plain-favored face, the smile where-of
Is beautiful; the eyes gray, changeful, bright,
Low-lidded now, and luminous as love,
Anon soul-searching, ominous as night,