English

If ever wonder could report a wonder,
Or tongue of wonder worth could tell a wonder thought,
Or ever joy expresse, what perfect joy hath taught,
Then wonder, tongue, then joy, might wel report a wonder.

Could all conceite conclude, which past conceite admireth,
Or could mine eye but ayme, her objects past perfection,
My words might imitate my deerest thoughts direction:
And my soule then obtaine which so my soule desireth.

Were not Invention stauld, treading Inventions maze,

Vertues Idea in virginitie,
By inspiration, came conceav'd with thought:
The time is come delivered she must be,
Where first my Love into the world was brought.

Unhappy Borne, of all unhappy day,
So luckles was my Babes nativity:
Saturne chiefe Lord of the Ascendant lay,
The wandring Moone in earths triplicitie.

Now, or by chaunce, or heavens hie providence,

Now Love, if thou wilt prove a Conqueror,
Subdue thys Tyrant ever martyring mee,
And but appoint me for her Tormentor,
Then for a Monarch will I honour thee.

My hart shall be the prison for my fayre,
Ile fetter her in chaines of purest love,
My sighes shall stop the passage of the ayre:
This punishment the pittilesse may move.

With teares out of the Channels of mine eyes,
She'st quench her thirst as duly as they fall:
Kinde words unkindest meate I can devise,
My sweet, my faire, my good, my best of all.

Looking into the glasse of my youths miseries,
I see the ugly face of my deformed cares,
With withered browes, all wrinckled with dispaires,
That for my mis-spent youth the tears fel from my eyes.

Then in these teares, the mirrors of these eyes,
Thy fayrest youth and Beautie doe I see,
Imprinted in my teares by looking still on thee:
Thus midst a thousand woes, ten thousand joyes arise.

Yet in these joyes, the shadowes of my good,
In this fayre limmed ground as white as snow,
Paynted the blackest Image of my woe,

Cleere Ankor , on whose silver-sanded shore,
My soule-shrinde Saint, my faire Idea lyes:
O blessed Brooke, whose milk-white Swans adore
That christall streame refined by her eyes.

Where sweet Myrh-breathing Zephyre in the spring,
Gently distils his Nectar-dropping showers:
Where Nightingals in Arden sit and sing,
Amongst those dainty dew-empearled flowers.

Some Athiest or vile Infidell in love,
When I doe speake of thy divinitie,
May blaspheme thus, and say, I flatter thee:
And onely write, my skill in verse to prove.

See my racles, yee unbeleeving see,
A dumbe-borne Muse made to expresse the mind,
A cripple hand to write, yet lame by kind,
One by thy name, the other touching thee.

Blind were mine eyes, till they were seene of thine,
And mine eares deafe, by thy fame healed be,
My vices cur'd, by vertues sprung from thee,

Thine eyes taught mee the Alphabet of love,
To con my Cros-rowe ere I learn'd to spell:
For I was apt a scholler like to prove,
Gave mee sweet lookes when as I learned well.

Vowes were my vowels when I then begun
At my first Lesson in thy sacred name,
My consonants the next when I had done,
Words consonant, and sounding to thy fame.

My liquids then were liquid christall teares,
My cares my mutes so mute to crave reliefe,
My dolefull Dypthongs were my lives dispaires,

Oft taking pen in hand, with words to cast my woes,
Beginning to account the sum of all my cares,
I well perceive my griefe in numerable growes,
And styll in reckonings rise more millions of dispayres.

And thus deviding of my fatall howres,
The payments of my love I read, and reading crosse,
And in substracting, set my sweets unto my sowres,
Th'arerage of my joyes, directs me to my losse.

And thus mine eyes, a debtor to thine eye,
Who by extortion gaineth all theyr lookes,
My hart hath payd such grievous usury,

Beauty sometime in all her glory crowned,
Passing by that cleere fountaine of thine eye:
Her sun-shine face there chaunsing to espy,
Forgot herselfe, and thought she had been drowned.

And thus whilst Beautie on her beauty gazed,
Who then yet living, deemd she had been dying,
And yet in death, some hope of life espying,
At her own rare perfections so amazed;

Twixt joy and griefe, yet with a smyling frowning,
The glorious sun-beames of her eyes bright shining,
And shee on her owne destiny divining,

Unto the World, to Learning, and to Heaven,
Three nines there are, to everie one a nine,
One number of the earth, the other both divine,
One wonder woman now makes three od numbers even.

Nine orders first of Angels be in heaven,
Nine Muses doe with learning still frequent:
These with the Gods are ever resident:
Nine worthy men unto the world were given.

My Worthie, one to these nine Worthies, addeth,
And my faire Muse, one Muse unto the nine:
And my good Angell in my soule divine,