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If 'twere not injur'd by extrinsique blows; |
Your birth and beauty are this Balm in you. |
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But, you of Learning and Religion, |
And virtue, 'and such ingredients, have made |
A Mithridate, whose operation |
Keeps off, or cures, what can be done or said. |
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Yet, this is not your physick, but your food, |
A diet fit for you; for you are here |
The first good Angel, since the worlds frame stood, |
That ever did in womans shape appear. |
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Since you are then Gods Master-piece, and so |
His Factor for our loves; do as you do, |
Make your return home gracious; and bestow |
This life on that; so make one life of two. |
For so God help me, I would not miss you there |
For all the good which you can do me here. |
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To the Countess of Bedford. |
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Madam, |
You have refin'd me, and to worthiest things |
Virtue, Art, Beauty, Fortune; now I see |
Rareness, or use, not nature value brings; |
And such, as they are circumstanc'd, they bee. |
Two ils can ne'r perplex us, sin t'excuse,* |
But of two good things we may leave or chuse. |
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Therefore at Court, which is not virtues clime, |
Where a transcendent height (as, lowness me) |
Makes her not see, or not show:* all my rime |
Your virtues challenge, which there rarest be;
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[CW: For] |