SWEET MONOTONY 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 strange? Why write I still all one, ever the same, That every word doth almost tell my name, O, know, sweet Love, I always write of you, For as the sun is daily new and old, WITH AN ALBUM 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, The wrinkles which thy glass will truly show Look, what thy memory can not contain Commit to these waste blanks, and thou shalt find These offices, so oft as thou wilt look, Shall profit thee and much enrich thy book. THE TRUE INSPIRATION So oft have I invoked thee for my Muse And found such fair assistance in my verse, As every alien pen hath got my use, And under thee their poesy disperse. Thine eyes that taught the dumb on high to sing And heavy ignorance aloft to fly, Have added feathers to the learned's wing, Yet be most proud of that which I compile, But thou art all my art, and dost advance THE IDEAL WHILST 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 sick Muse doth give another place. I grant, sweet Love, thy lovely argument He lends thee virtue, and he stole that word Then thank him not for that which he doth say, Since what he owes thee thou thyself dost pay. THE RIVAL DEFIED 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 since your worth, wide as the ocean is, On your broad main doth wilfully appear. Your shallowest help will hold me up afloat, Then if he thrive and I be cast away, |