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LXXXI.

Or I fhall live your epitaph to make,

Or

you furvive when I in earth am rotten;
From hence your memory death cannot take,
Although in me each part will be forgotten.
Your name from hence immortal life fhall have,
Though I, once gone, to all the world muft die :
The earth can yield me but a common grave,
When you entombed in men's eyes shall lie.
Your monument fhall be my gentle verse,
Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read;
And tongues to be your being shall rehearse,
When all the breathers of this world are dead;

You still shall live-such virtue hath my pen-
Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths

of men.

LXXXII.

I grant thou wert not married to my Mufe,
And therefore mayst without attaint o'erlook
The dedicated words which writers use
Of their fair fubje&t, bleffing every book.
Thou art as fair in knowledge as in hue,
Finding thy worth a limit past my praise;
And therefore art enforced to feek anew
Some fresher stamp of the time-bettering days.
And do fo, love; yet when they have devised
What ftrained touches rhetoric can lend,
Thou truly fair wert truly fympathised

In true plain words by thy true-telling friend;
And their grofs painting might be better used
Where cheeks need blood; in thee it is abused.

LXXXIII.

I never faw that you did painting need,
And therefore to your fair no painting set;
I found, or thought I found, you did exceed
The barren tender of a poet's debt:

And therefore have I flept in your report,

That you yourself, being extant, well might show
How far a modern quill doth come too short,
Speaking of worth, what worth in you doth grow.
This filence for my fin you did impute,
Which shall be most my glory, being dumb;
For I impair not beauty being mute,

When others would give life and bring a tomb.
There lives more life in one of your fair eyes

Than both your poets can in praise devise.

LXXXIV.

Who is it that fays most? which can say more
Than this rich praise, that you alone are you?
In whofe confine immured is the store

Which should example where your equal grew.
Lean penury within that pen doth dwell
That to his fubje& lends not some small glory;
But he that writes of you, if he can tell
That you are you, fo dignifies his story,

Let him but copy what in you is writ,

Not making worse what nature made so clear,
And fuch a counterpart shall fame his wit,
Making his style admired every where.

You to your beauteous blessings add a curse,

Being fond on praise, which makes your praifes worse.

LXXXV.

My tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her ftill, While comments of your praise, richly compiled, Referve their character with golden quill,

And precious phrase by all the Muses filed.

I think good thoughts, whilft other write good words,
And, like unlettered clerk, still cry 'Amen'
To every hymn that able spirit affords,

In polish'd form of well-refined pen.

Hearing you praised, I say ""Tis fo, 'tis true,'
And to the most of praise add something more;
But that is in my thought, whose love to you,
Though words come hindmoft, holds his rank before.
Then others for the breath of words respect,

Me for my dumb thoughts, speaking in effect.

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