With true-love-knots and flourishes,

That shall infuse eternal spring,
And everlasting flourishing:

Drink ev'ry letter on't in stum,

And make it brisk champaign become:
Where'er you tread, your foot shall set
The primrose and the violet:

All spices, perfumes, and sweet powders,
Shall borrow from your breath their odours:
Nature her charter shall renew,

And take all lives of things from you!

The world depend upon your eye,

And when

you frown upon it, die:
Only our loves shall still survive,
New worlds and natures to out-live;
And, like to heralds' moons, remain
All crescents, without change or wane.
Hold, hold, quoth she; no more of this,
Sir Knight; you take your aim amiss :
For you will find it a hard chapter
To catch me with poetic rapture;

In which your mastery of art
Doth shew itself, and not your heart:
Nor will you raise in mine combustion
By dint of high heroic fustian.

Avec des lacs d'amours charmants
Je les rendrai plus florissants;
De ce nom qui fera ma gloire

A chaque lettre je vais boire; (33)
Et la plus mauvaise boisson
Sera Champagne, avec ce nom.
Les violettes et les roses

Sur vos traces vont être écloses;
De votre haleine eaux de senteur
Prendront désormais leur odeur;
Sur vous et sur votre figure
Se modélera la nature;

Et toute entière périra,

Quand votre sourcil froncera;
Et mon amour, toujours le même,
Verra naître un nouveau systême,
Comme lune en blason enfin,
Toujours croissant et sans déclin.

Arrêtez, dit-elle, beau sire,
Finissez ce piètre délire;
Je vois que très-mal vous visez;
Ne croyez pas que vous puissiez

Rien gaguer sur moi par ces phrases,
Et ces poétiques extases,

Qui font voir votre habileté
Sans montrer de sincérité.

On ne me prendra de la vie

She that with poetry is won,

Is but a desk to write upon;

And what men say of her, they mean

No more than on the thing they lean.
Some with Arabian spices strive
T'embalm her cruelly alive;

Or season her, as French cooks use
Their haut-gouts, bouillies, or ragouts:
Use her so barbarously ill,

To grind her lips upon a mill,
Until the facet doublet doth

Fit their rhymes rather than her mouth :
Her mouth compar'd t' an oyster's, with
A row of pearl in't, 'stead of teeth.
Others make posies of her cheeks,
Where red and whitest colours mix;
In which the lily and the rose
For indian lake and ceruse goes:
The sun and moon by her bright eyes
Eclips'd, and darken'd in the skies,
Are but black patches, that she wears,
Cut into suns, and moons, and stars:
By which astrologers, as well
As those in heav'n above, can tell
What strange events they do foreshow

Par lieux communs de poésie.
Celle qui s'y laisse attraper
Justement se peut comparer
Au pupitre fait pour écrire;
Car, de cet amoureux délire,
Elle n'est non plus le sujet,
Que ce sur lequel on le fait.

Les uns l'embaument toute en vie

Avec épices d'Arabie;

Ils l'assaisonnent à leurs goûts,
Comme cuisiniers font ragoûts.
Ils mettent ses lèvres en poudre
A force de les faire moudre; (34)
Non pour l'orner, mais seulement
Pour faire un vers plus aisément.
A l'huître sa bouche ils comparent;
Pour dents, de perles ils la parent;
Et chaque joue est un bouquet,
Qui de rouge et de blanc est fait,
Où brillent le lys et la rose,
Laque et céruse on les suppose;
Par le brillant de ses beaux yeux,
On fait éclipser dans les cieux
Lune et soleil, dont la figure
En devient bien autant obscure
Que mouches en lune ou soleil
Qu'elle met sur son teint vermeil;
Dont l'astrologue fait usage,

Unto her under-world below.

Her voice, the music of the spheres,
So loud, it deafens mortals' ears,
As wise philosophers have thought,
And that's the cause we hear it not.
This has been done by some, who those
Th' ador'd in rhyme, would kill in prose;
And in those ribbons would have hung
Of which melodiously they sung;

That have the hard fate to write best
Of those still that deserve it least;
It matters not how false, or forc'd,
So the best things be said o' th' worst:
It goes for nothing when 'tis said,
Only the arrow's drawn to th' head,
Whether it be a swan or goose
They level at so shepherds use

To set the same mark on the hip

Both of their sound and rotten sheep:

For wits that carry low or wide,

Must be aim'd higher or beside

The mark, which else they ne'er come nigh, But when they take their aim awry.

But I do wonder you should choose

This way t' attack me with your muse,