Why is my verse so barren of new pride,
So far from variation or quick change? 
Why with the time do I not glance aside
To new-found methods, and to compounds strange? 
Why write I still all one, ever the same,
And keep invention in a noted weed,
That every word doth almost tell my name,
Showing their birth, and where they did proceed? 
O! know sweet love I always write of you,
And you and love are still my argument;
So all my best is dressing old words new,
Spending again what is already spent: 
  For as the sun is daily new and old,
  So is my love still telling what is told.

LXXVII

Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear,
Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste;
These vacant leaves thy mind’s imprint will bear,
And of this book, this learning mayst thou taste. 
The wrinkles which thy glass will truly show
Of mouthed graves will give thee memory;
Thou by thy dial’s shady stealth mayst know
Time’s thievish progress to eternity. 
Look! what thy memory cannot contain,
Commit to these waste blanks, and thou shalt find
Those children nursed, deliver’d from thy brain,
To take a new acquaintance of thy mind. 
  These offices, so oft as thou wilt look,
  Shall profit thee and much enrich thy book.

LXXVIII

So oft have I invoked thee for my Muse,
And found such fair assistance in my verse
As every alien pen hath got my use
And under thee their poesy disperse. 
Thine eyes, that taught the dumb on high to sing
And heavy ignorance aloft to fly,
Have added feathers to the learned’s wing
And given grace a double majesty. 
Yet be most proud of that which I compile,
Whose influence is thine, and born of thee: 
In others’ works thou dost but mend the style,
And arts with thy sweet graces graced be;
  But thou art all my art, and dost advance
  As high as learning, my rude ignorance.

LXXIX

Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid,
My verse alone had all thy gentle grace;
But now my gracious numbers are decay’d,
And my sick Muse doth give an other place. 
I grant, sweet love, thy lovely argument
Deserves the travail of a worthier pen;
Yet what of thee thy poet doth invent
He robs thee of, and pays it thee again. 
He lends thee virtue, and he stole that word
From thy behaviour; beauty doth he give,
And found it in thy cheek:  he can afford
No praise to thee, but what in thee doth live. 
  Then thank him not for that which he doth say,
  Since what he owes thee, thou thyself dost pay.

LXXX