To the Countesse of Salisbury. August. 1614

Faire, great, and good, since seeing you, wee seeWhat Heaven can doe, and what any Earth can be:Since now your beauty shines, now when the SunneGrowne stale, is to so low a value runne,That his disshevel'd beames and scattered firesServe but for Ladies Periwigs and TyresIn lovers Sonnets: you come to repaireGods booke of creatures, teaching what is faire.Since now, when all is withered, shrunke, and dri'd,All Vertues ebb'd out to a dead low tyde,All the worlds frame being crumbled into sand,Where every man thinks by himselfe to stand,Integritie, friendship, and confidence,(Ciments of greatnes) being vapor'd hence,And narrow man being fill'd with little shares,Court, Citie, Church, are all shops of small-wares,All having blowne to sparkes their noble fire,And drawne their sound gold-ingot into wyre;All trying by a love of littlenesseTo make abridgments, and to draw to lesse,Even that nothing, which at first we were;Since in these times, your greatnesse doth appeare,And that we learne by it, that man to getTowards him that's infinite, must first be great.Since in an age so ill, as none is fitSo much as to accuse, much lesse mend it,(For who can judge, or witnesse of those timesWhere all alike are guiltie of the crimes?)Where he that would be good, is thought by allA monster, or at best fantasticall;Since now you durst be good, and that I doeDiscerne, by daring to contemplate you,That there may be degrees of faire, great, good,Through your light, largenesse, vertue understood:If in this sacrifice of mine, be showneAny small sparke of these, call it your owne.And if things like these, have been said by meeOf others; call not that Idolatrie.For had God made man first, and man had seeneThe third daies fruits, and flowers, and various greene,He might have said the best that he could sayOf those faire creatures, which were made that day;And when next day he had admir'd the birthOf Sun, Moone, Stars, fairer then late-prais'd earth,Hee might have said the best that he could say,And not be chid for praising yesterday;So though some things are not together true,As, that another is worthiest, and, that you:Yet, to say so, doth not condemne a man,If when he spoke them, they were both true than.How faire a proofe of this, in our soule growes?Wee first have soules of growth, and sense, and those,When our last soule, our soule immortall came,Were swallowed into it, and have no name.Nor doth he injure those soules, which doth castThe power and praise of both them, on the last;No more doe I wrong any; I adoreThe same things now, which I ador'd before,The subject chang'd, and measure; the same thingIn a low constable, and in the KingI reverence; His power to work on mee:So did I humbly reverence each degreeOf faire, great, good; but more, now I am comeFrom having found their walkes, to find their home.And as I owe my first soules thankes, that theyFor my last soule did fit and mould my clay,So am I debtor unto them, whose worth,Enabled me to profit, and take forthThis new great lesson, thus to study you;Which none, not reading others, first, could doe.Nor lacke I light to read this booke, though IIn a darke Cave, yea in a Grave doe lie;For as your fellow Angells, so you doeIllustrate them who come to study you.The first whom we in Histories doe findeTo have profest all Arts, was one borne blinde:He lackt those eyes beasts have as well as wee,Not those, by which Angels are seene and see;So, though I'am borne without those eyes to live,Which fortune, who hath none her selfe, doth give,Which are, fit meanes to see bright courts and you,Yet may I see you thus, as now I doe;I shall by that, all goodnesse have discern'd,And though I burne my librarie, be learn'd.