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| To the Countesse of Salisbury. August. 1614. |
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| Faire, great, and good, since seeing you, we see |
| What Heaven can doe, what any Earth can be: |
| Since now your beautie shines, now when the Sun |
| Growne stale, is to so low a value runne, |
| That his disshevel'd beames, and scattered fires |
| Serve but for Ladies Periwigs and Tyres |
| In Lovers Sonnets: you come to repaire |
| Gods booke of creatures, teaching what is faire, |
| Since now, when all is withered, shrunk, & dry'd, |
| All Vertues ebb'd out to a dead low tyde, |
| All the worlds frame being crumbled into sand, |
| Where every man thinkes by himselfe to stand, |
| Integritie, friendship, and confidence, |
| (Ciments of greatnesse) being vapour'd hence, |
| And narrow man being fill'd with little shares, |
| Court, Citie, Church are all shops of small-wares, |
| All having blowne to sparkes their noble fire, |
| And drawne their sound gold ingot, into wyre; |
| All trying by a love of littlenesse |
| To make abridgements, and to draw to lesse, |
| Even that nothing, which at first we were; |
| Since in these times your greatnesse doth appeare, |
| And that we learne by it, that man to get |
| Towards him thats infinite, must first be great. |
| Since in an age so ill, as none is fit |
| So much as to accuse, much lesse mend it,
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[CW: (For] |