See Franz, Shakespeare-Grammatik, § 559.
l. 22. Inlaid thee. The O.E.D. cites this line as the only example of 'inlay' meaning 'to lay in, or as in, a place of concealment or preservation.' The sense is much that of 'to lay up', but the word has perhaps some of its more usual meaning, 'to set or embed in another substance.' 'Your husband has given to you, his jewel, such a setting as conceals instead of setting off your charms. I have refined and heightened those charms.'
l. 25. Thy graces and good words my creatures bee. I was tempted to adopt with Chambers the 'good works' of 1669 and some MSS., the theological connexion of 'grace' and 'works' being just the kind of conceit Donne loves to play with. But the 'words' of 1633-54 has the support of so good a MS. as W, and 'good words' is an Elizabethan idiom for commendation, praise, flattery:
He that will give,
Good words to thee will flatter neath abhorring.
Shakespeare, Coriolanus, I. i. 170-1.
In your bad strokes you give good words.
Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, V. i. 30.
Moreover, Donne's word is 'graces', not 'grace'. 'Your graces and commendations are my work', i.e. either the commendations you receive, or, more probably, the refined and elegant flatteries with which you can now cajole a lover, though once your whole stock of conversation did not extend beyond 'broken proverbs and torne sentences'. Compare, in Elegie IX: The Autumnall, the description of Lady Danvers' conversation: