The forward violet thus did I chide :
Sweet thief, whence didft thou steal thy fweet that
If not from my love's breath? The purple pride
Which on thy foft cheek for complexion dwells
love's veins thou haft too groffly dyed.
The lily I condemned for thy hand,
And buds of marjoram had stol'n thy hair;
The roses fearfully on thorns did stand,
One blushing shame, another white despair;
A third, nor red nor white, had ftol'n of both,
And to his robbery had annex'd thy breath;
But, for his theft, in pride of all his growth
A vengeful canker eat him up to death.
More flowers I noted, yet I none could fee
But fweet or colour it had ftol'n from thee.
Where art thou, Mufe, that thou forget'st so long
To speak of that which gives thee all thy might?
Spend'ft thou thy fury on fome worthless song,
Darkening thy power to lend base subjects light?
Return, forgetful Muse, and straight redeem
In gentle numbers time fo idly spent ;
Sing to the ear that doth thy lays esteem
And gives thy pen both skill and argument.
Rife, refty Mufe, my love's fweet face furvey,
If Time have any wrinkle graven there;
If any, be a fatire to decay,
And make Time's spoils despised every where.
Give
my love fame faster than Time waftes life;
So thou prevent'st his scythe and crooked knife.
O truant Muse, what shall be thy amends
For thy neglect of truth in beauty dyed?
Both truth and beauty on my love depends;
So doft thou too, and therein dignified.
Make answer, Mufe: wilt thou not haply say,
6 Truth needs no colour, with his colour fix'd;
Beauty no pencil, beauty's truth to lay;
But beft is beft, if never intermix'd'?
Because he needs no praise, wilt thou be dumb?
Excufe not filence fo; for 't lies in thee
To make him much outlive a gilded tomb
And to be praised of ages yet to be.
Then do thy office, Mufe; I teach thee how
To make him feem long hence as he shows now.
My love is strengthen'd, though more weak in seem-
I love not lefs, though less the show appear: [ing ;
That love is merchandized whose rich esteeming
The owner's tongue doth publish every where.
Our love was new, and then but in the spring,
When I was wont to greet it with my lays;
As Philomel in fummer's front doth fing,
And stops her pipe in growth of riper days:
Not that the fummer is lefs pleasant now
Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night,
But that wild mufic burthens every bough,
And sweets grown common lose their dear delight. Therefore, like her, I fometime hold my tongue, Because I would not dull you with my fong.
Alack, what poverty my Mufe brings forth,
That having such a scope to show her pride,
The argument, all bare, is of more worth
Than when it hath my added praise beside !
O, blame me not, if I no more can write!
Look in your glass, and there appears a face
That over-goes my blunt invention quite,
Dulling my lines and doing me disgrace.
Were it not finful then, ftriving to mend,
To mar the fubje&t that before was well?
For to no other pass my verses tend
Than of your graces and your gifts to tell;
And more, much more, than in my verse can fit,
Your own glass shows you when you look in it.
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