(A Proëmium to the love-songs: Petrarch, No. 101.)
My song of Love I will so sweetly sing,
In such fair concord of concerted phrase,
That twice a thousand chances Love displays
Shall breasts unmovèd with emotion wring.
I'll so do Love new Life to all shall bring,
Limning nice secrets in a thousand ways,
Soft angers, sighs that yearn for bygone days,
Foolhardy daring, Absence and her sting.
Yet, Ladye, of that honest open scorn
Shown by your aspect, rigorously bland,
I must content me saying minim part:
To sing the graces which your gest adorn,
Your lofty composition marvel-plan'd,
Here lack me Genius, Lere, and Poet-art.