If euer wonder could report a wonder,
    Or tongue of wonder worth could tell a wonder thought,
    Or euer ioy expresse what perfect ioy hath taught,
    Then wonder, tongue, then ioy, might wel report a wonder. 
    Could all conceite conclude, which past conceit admireth,
    Or could mine eye but ayme her obiects past perfection,
    My words might imitate my deerest thoughts direction,
    And my soule then obtaine which so my soule desireth. 
    Were not Inuention stauld, treading Inuentions maze,
    Or my swift-winged Muse tyred by too hie flying;
    Did not perfection still on her perfection gaze,
    Whilst Loue (my Phoenix bird) in her owne flame is dying,
      Inuention and my Muse, perfection and her loue,
      Should teach the world to know the wonder that I proue.

Amour 18

Some, when in ryme they of their Loues doe tell, With flames and lightning their exordiums paynt:  Some inuocate the Gods, some spirits of Hell, And heauen, and earth doe with their woes acquaint. Elizia is too hie a seate for mee:  I wyll not come in Stixe or Phlegiton; The Muses nice, the Furies cruell be, I lyke not Limbo, nor blacke Acheron, Spightful Erinnis frights mee with her lookes, My manhood dares not with foule Ate mell:  I quake to looke on Hecats charming bookes, I styll feare bugbeares in Apollos cell. 
  I passe not for Minerua nor Astraea. 
But euer call vpon diuine Idea.

Amour 19

    If those ten Regions, registred by Fame,
    By theyr ten Sibils haue the world controld,
    Who prophecied of Christ or ere he came,
    And of his blessed birth before fore-told;
    That man-god now, of whom they did diuine,
    This earth of those sweet Prophets hath bereft,
    And since the world to iudgement doth declyne,
    Instead of ten, one Sibil to vs left. 
    Thys pure Idea, vertues right Idea,
    Shee of whom Merlin long tyme did fore-tell,
    Excelling her of Delphos or Cumaea,
    Whose lyfe doth saue a thousand soules from hell: 
      That life (I meane) which doth Religion teach,
      And by example true repentance preach.

Amour 20

Reading sometyme, my sorrowes to beguile, I find old Poets hylls and floods admire:  One, he doth wonder monster-breeding Nyle, Another meruailes Sulphure Aetnas fire.  Now broad-brymd Indus, then of Pindus height, Pelion and Ossa, frosty Caucase old, The Delian Cynthus, then Olympus weight, Slow Arrer, franticke Gallus, Cydnus cold.  Some Ganges, Ister, and of Tagus tell, Some whir-poole Po, and slyding Hypasis; Some old Pernassus where the Muses dwell, Some Helycon, and some faire Simois: 
  A, fooles! thinke I, had you Idea seene,
Poore Brookes and Banks had no such wonders beene.

Amour 21