C

Where art thou Muse that thou forget’st so long,
To speak of that which gives thee all thy might? 
Spend’st thou thy fury on some worthless song,
Darkening thy power to lend base subjects light? 
Return forgetful Muse, and straight redeem,
In gentle numbers time so idly spent;
Sing to the ear that doth thy lays esteem
And gives thy pen both skill and argument. 
Rise, resty Muse, my love’s sweet face survey,
If Time have any wrinkle graven there;
If any, be a satire to decay,
And make time’s spoils despised every where. 
  Give my love fame faster than Time wastes life,
  So thou prevent’st his scythe and crooked knife.

CI

O truant Muse what shall be thy amends
For thy neglect of truth in beauty dy’d? 
Both truth and beauty on my love depends;
So dost thou too, and therein dignified. 
Make answer Muse:  wilt thou not haply say,
’Truth needs no colour, with his colour fix’d;
Beauty no pencil, beauty’s truth to lay;
But best is best, if never intermix’d’? 
Because he needs no praise, wilt thou be dumb? 
Excuse not silence so, for’t lies in thee
To make him much outlive a gilded tomb
And to be prais’d of ages yet to be. 
  Then do thy office, Muse; I teach thee how
  To make him seem long hence as he shows now.

CII

My love is strengthen’d, though more weak in seeming;
I love not less, though less the show appear;
That love is merchandiz’d, whose rich esteeming,
The owner’s tongue doth publish every where. 
Our love was new, and then but in the spring,
When I was wont to greet it with my lays;
As Philomel in summer’s front doth sing,
And stops her pipe in growth of riper days: 
Not that the summer is less pleasant now
Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night,
But that wild music burthens every bough,
And sweets grown common lose their dear delight. 
  Therefore like her, I sometime hold my tongue: 
  Because I would not dull you with my song.

CIII

Alack! what poverty my Muse brings forth,
That having such a scope to show her pride,
The argument, all bare, is of more worth
Than when it hath my added praise beside! 
O! blame me not, if I no more can write! 
Look in your glass, and there appears a face
That over-goes my blunt invention quite,
Dulling my lines, and doing me disgrace. 
Were it not sinful then, striving to mend,
To mar the subject that before was well? 
For to no other pass my verses tend
Than of your graces and your gifts to tell;
  And more, much more, than in my verse can sit,
  Your own glass shows you when you look in it.

CIV