XXXIX
When winter snows upon thy sable hairs,
And frost of age hath nipped thy beauties near,
When dark shall seem thy day that never clears,
And all lies withered that was held so dear;
Then take this picture which I here present thee,
Limned with a pencil not all unworthy;
Here see the gifts that God and nature lent thee,
Here read thyself and what I suffered for thee.
This may remain thy lasting monument,
Which happily posterity may cherish;
These colours with thy fading are not spent,
These may remain when thou and I shall perish.
If they remain, then thou shalt live thereby;
They will remain, and so thou canst not die.
XL
Thou canst not die whilst any zeal abound
In feeling hearts than can conceive these lines;
Though thou a Laura hast no Petrarch found,
In base attire yet clearly beauty shines.
And I though born within a colder clime,
Do feel mine inward heat as great—I know it;
He never had more faith, although more rhyme;
I love as well though he could better show it.
But I may add one feather to thy fame,
To help her flight throughout the fairest isle;
And if my pen could more enlarge thy name,
Then shouldst thou live in an immortal style.
For though that Laura better limnèd be,
Suffice, thou shalt be loved as well as she!
XLI
Be not displeased that these my papers should
Bewray unto the world how fair thou art;
Or that my wits have showed the best they could
The chastest flame that ever warmèd heart.
Think not, sweet Delia, this shall be thy shame,
My muse should sound thy praise with mournful warble.
How many live, the glory of whose name
Shall rest in ice, while thine is graved in marble!
Thou mayst in after ages live esteemed,
Unburied in these lines, reserved in pureness;
These shall entomb those eyes, that have redeemed
Me from the vulgar, thee from all obscureness.
Although my careful accents never moved thee,
Yet count it no disgrace that I loved thee.