Cupid, dumbe-Idoll, peeuish Saint of loue, No more shalt thou nor Saint nor Idoll be; No God art thou, a Goddesse shee doth proue, Of all thine honour shee hath robbed thee. Thy Bowe, halfe broke, is peec'd with old desire; Her Bowe is beauty with ten thousand strings Of purest gold, tempred with vertues fire, The least able to kyll an hoste of Kings. Thy shafts be spent, and shee (to warre appointed) Hydes in those christall quiuers of her eyes More Arrowes, with hart-piercing mettel poynted, Then there be starres at midnight in the skyes. With these she steales mens harts for her reliefe, Yet happy he thats robd of such a thiefe!
My Loue makes hote the fire whose heat is spent, The water moisture from my teares deriueth, And my strong sighes the ayres weake force reuiueth: Thus loue, tears, sighes, maintaine each one his element. The fire, vnto my loue, compare a painted fire, The water, to my teares as drops to Oceans be, The ayre, vnto my sighes as Eagle to the flie, The passions of dispaire but ioyes to my desire. Onely my loue is in the fire ingraued, Onely my teares by Oceans may be gessed, Onely my sighes are by the ayre expressed; Yet fire, water, ayre, of nature not depriued. Whilst fire, water, ayre, twixt heauen and earth shal be, My loue, my teares, my sighes, extinguisht cannot be.
Some wits there be which lyke my method well, And say my verse runnes in a lofty vayne; Some say, I haue a passing pleasing straine, Some say that in my humour I excell. Some who reach not the height of my conceite, They say, (as Poets doe) I vse to fayne, And in bare words paynt out my passions payne: Thus sundry men their sundry minds repeate. I passe not I how men affected be, Nor who commend, or discommend my verse; It pleaseth me if I my plaints rehearse, And in my lynes if shee my loue may see. I proue my verse autentique still in thys, Who writes my Mistres praise can neuer write amisse.
O eyes! behold your happy _Hesperus_, That luckie Load-starre of eternall light, Left as that sunne alone to comfort vs, When our worlds sunne is vanisht out of sight. O starre of starres! fayre Planet mildly moouing, O Lampe of vertue! sun-bright, euer shyning, O mine eyes Comet! so admyr'd by louing, O cleerest day-starre! neuer more declyning. O our worlds wonder! crowne of heauen aboue, Thrice happy be those eyes which may behold thee! Lou'd more then life, yet onely art his loue Whose glorious hand immortal hath enrold thee! O blessed fayre! now vaile those heauenly eyes, That I may blesse mee at thy sweet arise.