Page 2025 - Shakespeare - Vol. 4

79 IT

Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid

My verse alone had all thy gentle grace;
But now my gracious numbers are decayed
And my sick muse doth give another place.
I grant, sweet love, thy lovely argument

Deserves the travail of a worthier pen;
Yet what of thee thy poet doth invent
He robs thee of, and pays it thee again.
He lends thee virtue, and he stole that word

From thy behaviour; beauty doth he give,
And found it in thy cheek; he can afford
No praise to thee but what in thee doth live.
Then thank him not for that which he doth say,

Since what he owes thee thou thyself dost pay.