| IF my dear love were but the child of state | |
| It might for Fortune’s bastard be unfather’d, | |
| As subject to Time’s love or to Time’s hate, | |
| Weeds among weeds, or flowers with flowers gather’d. | |
| No, it was builded far from accident; | 5 |
| It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls | |
| Under the blow of thralled discontent, | |
| Whereto the inviting time our fashion calls: | |
| It fears not policy, that heretic, | |
| Which works on leases of short-number’d hours, | 10 |
| But all alone stands hugely politic, | |
| That it nor grows with heat, nor drowns with showers. | |
| To this I witness call the fools of time, | |
| Which die for goodness, who have liv’d for crime. |