How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame,
Which, like a canker in a fragrant rose,
Doth spot the beauty of thy budding name!
O, in what sweets dost thou thy sins enclose!
That tongue that tells the story of thy days,
Making lascivious comments on thy sport,
Cannot dispraise but in a kind of praise;
Naming thy name blesses an ill report.
Elle était brune, ni belle, ni jeune, et mal famée. (Sonnets.)
From you I have been absent in the spring,
When proud-pied April, dress'd in all his trim,
Had put a spirit of youth in every thing,
That heavy Saturn laugh'd and leap'd with him.
Nor did I wonder at the lilies white,
Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose.
The forward violet thus I did chide:
«Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells,
If not from my love's breath? The purple pride,
Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells,
In my love's veins thou hast too grossly dy'd.»
The lily I condemned for thy hand,
And buds of marjoram had stolen thy hair:
The roses fearfully on thorns did stand,
One blushing shame, another white despair.
A third, nor red nor white, had stolen of both,
And to this robbery had annex'd thy breath;
More flowers I noted, yet I none could see
But sweet or colour it had stolen from thee.