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CXIV



Or whether doth my mind, being crown\'d with you,

Drink up the monarch\'s plague, this flattery?

Or whether shall I say, mine eye saith true,

And that your love taught it this alchemy,

To make of monsters and things indigest

Such cherubins as your sweet self resemble,

Creating every bad a perfect best,

As fast as objects to his beams assemble?

O! \'tis the first, \'tis flattery in my seeing,

And my great mind most kingly drinks it up:

Mine eye well knows what with his gust is \'greeing, 

And to his palate doth prepare the cup:

  If it be poison\'d, \'tis the lesser sin

  That mine eye loves it and doth first begin.

 	--William Shakespeare

LIX



If there be nothing new, but that which is

Hath been before, how are our brains beguil\'d,

Which labouring for invention bear amiss

The second burthen of a former child!

O! that record could with a backward look,

Even of five hundred courses of the sun,

Show me your image in some antique book,

Since mind at first in character was done!

That I might see what the old world could say

To this composed wonder of your frame;

Wh\'r we are mended, or wh\'r better they,

Or whether revolution be the same. 

  O! sure I am the wits of former days,

  To subjects worse have given admiring praise.

 	--William Shakespeare

C



Where art thou Muse that thou forget\'st so long,

To speak of that which gives thee all thy might?

Spend\'st thou thy fury on some worthless song,

Darkening thy power to lend base subjects light?

Return forgetful Muse, and straight redeem,

In gentle numbers time so idly spent;

Sing to the ear that doth thy lays esteem

And gives thy pen both skill and argument.

Rise, resty Muse, my love\'s sweet face survey,

If Time have any wrinkle graven there;

If any, be a satire to decay,

And make time\'s spoils despised every where.

  Give my love fame faster than Time wastes life,

  So thou prevent\'st his scythe and crooked knife.

 	--William Shakespeare