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LXXVI.

Why is my verse so barren of new pride,
So far from variation or quick change?

Why with the time do I not glance aside
To new-found methods and to compounds ftrange?
Why write I still all one, ever the same,

And keep invention in a noted weed,

That every word doth almost tell my name,
Showing their birth and where they did proceed?
O, know, fweet love, I always write of you,
And you and love are still my argument;
So all my best is dreffing old words new,
Spending again what is already spent :

For as the fun is daily new and old,
So is my love ftill telling what is told.

LXXVII.

Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear,
Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste;
The vacant leaves thy mind's imprint will bear,
And of this book this learning mayst thou taste.
The wrinkles which thy glass will truly show
Of mouthed graves will give thee memory;
Thou by thy dial's fhady ftealth mayft know
Time's thievish progress to eternity.

Look, what thy memory cannot contain

Commit to these waste blanks, and thou shalt find Those children nursed, deliver'd from thy brain, To take a new acquaintance of thy mind.

These offices, so oft as thou wilt look,

Shall profit thee and much enrich thy book.

LXXVIII.

So oft have I invoked thee for my Muse
And found fuch fair affistance in my verse
As every alien pen hath got my use
And under thee their poefy disperse.

Thine eyes, that taught the dumb on high to fing

And heavy ignorance aloft to fly,

Have added feathers to the learned's wing

And given grace a double majesty.

Yet be most proud of that which I compile,
Whose influence is thine and born of thee:
In others' works thou doft but mend the style,
And arts with thy fweet graces graced be;
But thou art all my art, and doft advance
As high as learning my rude ignorance.

LXXIX.

Whilft I alone did call upon thy aid,
My verse alone had all thy gentle grace;
But now my gracious numbers are decay'd,
And my fick Mufe doth give another place.
I grant, sweet love, thy lovely argument
Deferves the travail of a worthier pen;
Yet what of thee thy poet doth invent
He robs thee of, and pays it thee again.
He lends thee virtue, and he stole that word
From thy behaviour; beauty doth he give,
And found it in thy cheek; he can afford
No praise to thee but what in thee doth live.
Then thank him not for that which he doth say,
Since what he owes thee thou thyself dost pay.

LXXX.

O, how I faint when I of you do write,
Knowing a better spirit doth use your name,
And in the praise thereof spends all his might,
To make me tongue-tied, speaking of your fame!
But fince your worth, wide as the ocean is,

The humble as the proudeft fail doth bear,
My faucy bark, inferior far to his,

On broad main doth wilfully appear.

your

Your shallowest help will hold me up afloat,
Whilft he upon your foundless deep doth ride;
Or, being wreck'd, I am a worthless boat,
He of tall building and of goodly pride:
Then if he thrive and I be caft away,

The worst was this; my love was my decay.

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