I

OF HIS SILENCE

NEVER saw 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 slept 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 silence for my sin 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.

LOVE'S ONE WORD

WHO is it that says most? which can say more

Than this rich praise, that you alone are

you?

In whose confine immuréd is the store

Which should example where your equal grew.

Lean penury within that pen doth dwell
That to his subject lends not some small glory;
But he that writes of you, if he can tell
That you are you, so dignifies his story.

Let him but copy what in you is writ,
Not making worse what nature made so clear,
And such a counterpart shall fame his wit,
Making his style admiréd every where.

You to your beauteous blessings add a curse, Being fond of praise, which makes your praises

worse.

MY

ELOQUENT SILENCE

Y tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still
While comments of your praise, richly com-

piled,

Reserve their character with golden quill
And precious phrase by all the Muses filed.

I think good thoughts whilst others write good

words,

And like unletter'd clerk still cry 'Amen'

To every hymn that able spirit affords

In polish'd form of well-refinéd pen,

Hearing you praised, I say “Tis so, 'tis true,'
And to the most of praise add something more ;
But that is in my thought, whose love to you,

Though words come hindmost, holds his rank before.

Then others for the breath of words respect,

Me for my dumb thoughts, speaking in effect.

JEALOUSY

AS it the proud full sail of his great verse,

WAS

Bound for the prize of all-too-precious you, That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse, Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew ?

Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write
Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead?
No, neither he, nor his compeers by night
Giving him aid, my verse astonishéd.

He, nor that affable familiar ghost
Which nightly gulls him with intelligence,
As victors of my silence cannot boast;
I was not sick of any fear from thence :

But when your countenance fill'd up his line,
Then lack'd I matter; that enfeebled mine.

A RENUNCIATION

FAREWELL! thou art too dear for my

possessing,

And like enough thou know'st thy estimate :
The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing ;
My bonds in thee are all determinate.

For how do I hold thee but by thy granting ?
And for that riches where is my deserving?
The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting,

And so my patent back again is swerving.

Thyself thou gav'st, thy own worth then not knowing,

Or me, to whom thou gav'st it, else mistaking; So thy great gift, upon misprision growing, Comes home again, on better judgment making.

Thus have I had thee, as a dream doth flatter;
In sleep a king, but waking no such matter.