English

Beautie (sweet Love) is like the morning dewe
Whose short refresh upon the tender greene
Cheeres for a time but till the Sunne doth shew,
And straight tis gone as it had never beene.
Soone doth it fade that makes the fairest florish;
Short is the glory of the blushing Rose:
The hewe which thou so carefully dost nourish,
Yet which at length thou must be forc'd to lose
When thou surcharg'd with burthen of thy yeeres,
Shalt bend thy wrinkles homeward to the earth;
When time hath made a pasport for thy feares,

How long shall in mine affliction mourne,
A burthen to my selfe, distrest in minde?
When shall my interdicted hopes returne
From out dispaire wherein they live confin'd?
When shall her troubled brow, charg'd with disdaine,
Reveale the treasure which her smyles impart?
When shall my faith the happines attaine,
To breake the Ise that hath congeald her hart?
Unto herselfe, herselfe my love doth sommon,
(If love in her hath any power to move)
And let her tell me as shee is a woman,

My Delia hath the waters of mine eyes
The ready handmaids on her grace attending,
That never fall to ebb, but ever rise,
For to their flow she never grants an ending.
Th'Ocean never did attend more dulie
Upon his soveraigne's course, the night's pale Queen,
Nor paid the impost of his waves more truely
Then mine unto her Deitie have been.
Yet nought the rock of that hard hart can move,

Reade in my face a volume of dispayres,
The wayling Iliads of my tragicke woe,
Drawne with my blood, and printed with my cares,
Wrought by her hand that I have honoured so:
Who whilst I burne, she sings at my soule's wrack,
Looking aloft from Turret of her pride:
There my soule's Tyrant joyes her, in the sack
Of her owne seate, whereof I made her guide
There doe these smoakes that from affliction rise
Serve as an incense to a cruell Dame;
A Sacrifice thrice-gratefull to her eyes,

Fayre and lovely mayde, looke from the shore,
See thy Leander striving in these waves,
Poore soule quite spent, whose force can do no more;
Now send forth hopes, for now calme pitty saves:
And waft him to thee with those lovely eyes,
A happy convoy to a holy Lande:
Now shewe thy power, and where thy vertue lyes;
To save thine owne, stretch out the fairest hand

Delia , these eyes that so admireth thine
Have seene those walls the which ambition rear'd
To check the world, how they intombd have lyen
Within themselves, and on them ploughes have ear'd
Yet found I that no barbarous hand attaind
The spoyle of fame deserv'd by vertuous men,
Whose glorious actions luckily had gaind
Th'eternall Annals of a happy pen

O be not griev'd that these my papers should
Bewray unto the world how faire thou art,
Or that my wits have shewed the best they could,
(The chastest flame that ever warmed hart).
Thinke not (sweet Delia ) this shall be thy shame
My Muse should sound thy praise with mournefull warble:
How many live, the glory of whose name
Shall rest in Ise, when thine is grav'd in Marble.

Thou canst not die whilst any zeale abound
In feeling harts, that can conceive these lynes:
Though thou a Laura hast no Petrarch found,
In base attyre yet cleerely Beauty shines
And I (though borne within a colder clime)
Doe feele mine inward heat as great, (I knowe it):
Hee never had more faith, although more rime;
I love as well, though he could better show it

When Winter snowes upon thy golden haires,
And frost of age hath nipt thy flowers neere,
When dark shal seeme thy day that never cleeres,
And all lies withred that was held so deere;
Then take this picture which I heere present thee,
Limned with a Pensill not all unworthy:
Heere see the gifts that God and nature lent thee;
Heare reade thy selfe, and what I suffred for thee
This may remaine thy lasting monument,
Which happily posteritie may cherrish:
These colours with thy fading are not spent;

When men shall finde thy flower, thy glory passe,
And thou with carefull brow sitting alone
Received hast this message from thy glasse,
That tells the truth, and saies that all is gone;
Fresh shalt thou see in mee the wounds thou madest,
Though spent thy flame, in mee the heate remaining:
I that have lov'd thee thus before thou fadest,
My faith shall waxe, when thou art in thy waining
The world shall finde this myracle in mee,
That fire can burne, when all the matter's spent:
Then what my faith hath beene thy selfe shalt see,