Letters and lines we see are soon defaced Metals do waste and fret with canker's rust, The diamond shall once consume to dust, And freshest colours with foul stains disgraced; Paper and ink can paint but naked words, To write with blood of force offends the sight; And if with tears, I find them all too light, And sighs and signs a silly hope affords. O sweetest shadow, how thou serv'st my turn! Which still shalt be as long as there is sun, Nor whilst the world is never shall be done; Whilst moon shall shine or any fire shall burn, That everything whence shadow doth proceed, May in his shadow my love's story read.
If he, from heaven that filched that living fire, Condemned by Jove to endless torment be, I greatly marvel how you still go free That far beyond Prometheus did aspire. The fire he stole, although of heavenly kind, Which from above he craftily did take, Of lifeless clods us living men to make He did bestow in temper of the mind. But you broke into heaven's immortal store, Where virtue, honour, wit, and beauty lay; Which taking thence, you have escaped away, Yet stand as free as e'er you did before. Yet old Prometheus punished for his rape; Thus poor thieves suffer when the greater 'scape.
Since to obtain thee nothing me will stead, I have a med'cine that shall cure my love. The powder of her heart dried, when she's dead, That gold nor honour ne'er had power to move; Mixed with her tears that ne'er her true love crost, Nor at fifteen ne'er longed to be a bride; Boiled with her sighs, in giving up the ghost, That for her late deceasèd husband died; Into the same then let a woman breathe, That being chid did never word reply; With one thrice married's prayers, that did bequeath A legacy to stale virginity. If this receipt have not the power to win me, Little I'll say, but think the devil's in me!
'Mongst all the creatures in this spacious round Of the birds' kind, the phoenix is alone, Which best by you of living things is known; None like to that, none like to you is found! Your beauty is the hot and splend'rous sun; The precious spices be your chaste desire, Which being kindled by that heavenly fire, Your life, so like the phoenix's begun. Yourself thus burnèd in that sacred flame, With so rare sweetness all the heavens perfuming; Again increasing as you are consuming, Only by dying born the very same. And winged by fame you to the stars ascend; So you of time shall live beyond the end.