| 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 subject, blessing every book. | |
| Thou art as fair in knowledge as in hue, | 5 |
| Finding thy worth a limit past my praise; | |
| And therefore art enforc’d to seek anew | |
| Some fresher stamp of the time-bettering days. | |
| And do so, love; yet when they have devis’d | |
| What strained touches rhetoric can lend, | 10 |
| Thou truly fair wert truly sympathized | |
| In true plain words by thy true-telling friend; | |
| And their gross painting might be better used | |
| Where cheeks need blood; in thee it is abus’d. |