1216I grant thou wert not married to my Muse,

1217And therefore mayst without attaint o'erlook

1218The dedicated words which writers use

1219Of their fair subject, blessing every book.

1220Thou art as fair in knowledge as in hue,

1221Finding thy worth a limit past my praise,

1222And therefore art enforced to seek anew

1223Some fresher stamp of the time-bettering days.

1224And do so, love; yet when they have devised

1225What strainèd touches rhetoric can lend,

1226Thou, truly fair, wert truly sympathized

1227In true plain words, by thy true-telling friend;

1228 And their gross painting might be better used

1229 Where cheeks need blood; in thee it is abused.

1231I never saw that you did painting need,

1232And therefore to your fair no painting set;

1233I found (or thought I found) you did exceed

1234The barren tender of a poet's debt;

1235And therefore have I slept in your report,

1236That you yourself, being extant, well might show

1237How far a modern quill doth come too short,

1238Speaking of worth, what worth in you doth grow.

1239This silence for my sin you did impute,

1240Which shall be most my glory, being dumb;

1241For I impair not beauty, being mute,

1242When others would give life, and bring a tomb.

1243 There lives more life in one of your fair eyes

1244 Than both your poets can in praise devise.

1246Who is it that says most which can say more

1247Than this rich praise: that you alone are you?

1248In whose confine immured is the store

1249Which should example where your equal grew?

1250Lean penury within that pen doth dwell

1251That to his subject lends not some small glory;

1252But he that writes of you, if he can tell

1253That you are you, so dignifies his story.

1254Let him but copy what in you is writ,

1255Not making worse what nature made so clear,

1256And such a counterpart shall fame his wit,

1257Making his style admired everywhere.

1258 You to your beauteous blessings add a curse,

1259 Being fond on praise, which makes your praises worse.