Classic Poem

Your beautie (madame) made
mine eye to like your face:
And now my hart did cause my hand
to sue to you for grace.
The ground of my good wil,
by feature first was cast,
Which your good noble nature hath
for euer sealed fast.
When plants be surely pight,
than lightly will they proue,
No tree can take so deep a roote
as grifts of faithfull loue.
If I had feared disdaine,
or thought that hawtie pride
Had harbourd in that brest of yours,
which is the pecocks guide:
Then should I not haue durst
these verses to indite,
But waying well your curteous kind,
I tooke the hart to write.
In hope that Venus gifts
are matcht with Pallas goods,
And that true frendship floures wil spring
of blasing beauties buds.
For seldom shal you find
a dame of your degree,
And of such features, but hir lookes
and maners do agree
Which if in proofe I find,
as I presume I shall,
Then happy others, but I compt
my fortune best of all.
And to expresse my ioy,
my hands I mean to clap:
As who would say, loe I am he
that hane this blessed hap.
Let not my hopes be vaine,
in your hand lies my life:
And if you list to cut my throte,
you haue the fatall knife.
For wholly on your lookes
and mercy stayes the threed
That holds my lims togither now,
the gods haue so decreed
I am your bounden thrall,
and euer mean to be:
I will not change my choice, &c.