|
| So I should give this letter length, and say |
| That which I said of you; there is no way |
| From either, but to the other, not to stray. |
|
| May therefore this be enough to testify |
| My true devotion, free from flattery; |
| He that beleeves himself, doth never lie. |
|
| To the Countess of Salisbury. August. 1614. |
|
| Fair, great, and good, since seeing you we see |
| What heaven can doe, and what any Earth can be: |
| Since now your beauty shines, now when the Sun |
| Grown stale, is to so low a value run, |
| That his disshevel'd beams, and scattered fires |
| Serve but for Ladies Periwigs and Tyres |
| In Lovers Sonnets: you come to repair |
| Gods book of creatures, teaching what is fair. |
| Since now, when all is withered, shrunk and dry'd, |
| All vertues eb'd out to a dead low tyde, |
| All the worlds frame being crumbled into sand, |
| Where every man thinks by himself to stand, |
| Integrity, friendship and confidence, |
| (Ciments of greatness) being vapour'd hence, |
| And narrow man being fill'd with little shares, |
| Courts, City, Church, are all shops of small-wares, |
| All having blown to sparkes their noble fire, |
| And drawn their sound gold ingot, into wyre; |
| All trying by a love of littleness |
| To make abridgments and to draw to less, |
| Even that nothing, which at first we were, |
| Since in these times your greatness doth appear,
|
[CW: And] |