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And now bicause thy minde it may not mooue
To anger, by receiuing of the same:
And if thou think’st thy honour I doe prooue,
Knowe from a God, and from no man it came.

Euen from the God of Loue, who is a God
Of highest birth, whose power doth extend
In heauen, and earth, where he makes his abode,
Both paying tribute to him without end.

So that it is the mighty God of Loue
That erres (if that in writing he doth erre)
Against Loue therefore all thy anger mooue,
(If this to wrath thy modest minde may stirre.)

Harke well (my deerest Mistresse) what I say,
That if this letter breedeth thy offence,
Be thou reueng’d of Loue, which did assay
To write, and not of me for this pretence.

But by the way I tell thee as a friend,
That if with Loue thou dost begin to striue,
With nature and her lawes thou dost contend,
For making thee the fairest one aliue.

For if she haue of purpose giuen thee
Beautie, and grace, and in thy brest hath fram’d
The onely patterne of gentilitie,
That beauties Paragon thou maist be nam’d.

And to lay vp her riches all in one,
Of all her treasure she hath now despoild
The world, and made it poore in leauing none,
And to make thee the onely one hath toild.

Hath she not reason then to be offended,
If by the gemme, where she her vtmost tride,
She would haue seene and knowne how far extended
Her passing skill, which thou dost seeke to hide?

Hath she not reason to be angrie, when
The patterne of her skill and onely one
Hides from the world and buries in a den
Her treasures, which so faine she would haue knowne?

For sure I knowe, if that thou meanest not
To loue, thou buriest all her partes in thee:
And dost thou thinke, that anything is got
By flying Loue, and natures best decree?

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