LXXVIII.

So oft have I invoked thee for my Muse
And found fuch fair assistance in my verse
As every alien pen hath got my use

And under thee their poefy difperfe.

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,
Whofe 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 dost 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 Muse doth give another place.
I grant, fweet 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 doft 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, fpeaking 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 shalloweft 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.

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 shall 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 Muse,
And therefore mayst without attaint o'erlook
The dedicated words which writers use
Of their fair fubject, bleffing every book.
Thou art as fair in knowledge as in hue,
Finding thy worth a limit paft 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.