What "shadowings" the poet may intend he refuses to confide to us. "If thou muse what my Licia is, take her to be some Diana, at the least chaste; or some Minerva; no Venus, fairer far. It may be she is Learning's image, or some heavenly wonder, which the precisest may not dislike: perhaps under that name I have shadowed Discipline. It may be I mean that kind courtesy which I found at the patroness of these poems. It may be some college; it may be my conceit, and portend nothing." It is evident then that the patroness herself is not the real person behind the poetic title. He therefore dedicates _Licia_ to Lady Molineux, not because the sonnets themselves are addressed to her, but because he has received "favours undeserved" at her hands and those of "wise Sir Richard" for which he "wants means to make recompence," and therefore in the meantime he begs her to accept this. "If thou like it," he says to the reader, "take it, and thank the worthy Lady Mollineux, for whose sake thou hast it; worthy, indeed, and so not only reputed by me in private affection of thankfulness but so equally to be esteemed by all that know her. For if I had not received of her ... those unrequitable favours, I had not thus idly toyed."
A warm admirer of Fletcher has expressed his opinion that _Licia_ "sparkles with brilliants of the first water." A more temperate judgment is that of another, who says that he "took part without discredit in the choir of singers who were men of action too." _Licia_ is what a typical sonnet-cycle ought to be, a delicate and almost intangible thread of story on which are strung the separate sonnet-pearls. In this case the jewels have a particular finish. Fletcher has adopted the idea of a series of quatrains, often extending the number to four, and a concluding couplet, which he seems fond of utilising to give an epigrammatic finish to the ingenious incident he so often makes the subject of the sonnet. He is fully in the spirit of the Italian mode, however, acknowledging in his title page his indebtedness to poets of other nationalities than his own.
Bright matchless star, the honour of the sky, From whose clear shine heaven's vault hath all his light, I send these poems to your graceful eye; Do you but take them, and they have their right. I build besides a temple to your name, Wherein my thoughts shall daily sing your praise; And will erect an altar for the same, Which shall your virtues and your honour raise. But heaven the temple of your honour is, Whose brasen tops your worthy self made proud; The ground an altar, base for such a bliss With pity torn, because I sighed so loud. And since my skill no worship can impart, Make you an incense of my loving heart. Sad all alone not long I musing sat, But that my thoughts compelled me to aspire, A laurel garland in my hand I gat; So the Muses I approached the nigher. My suite was this, a poet to become, To drink with them, and from the heavens be fed. Phoebus denied, and sware there was no room, Such to be poets as fond fancy led. With that I mourned and sat me down to weep. Venus she smiled, and smiling to me said, "Come, drink with me, and sit thee still and sleep." This voice I heard; and Venus I obeyed. That poison sweet hath done me all this wrong, For now of love must needs be all my song.