LXXXIII

    I never saw that you did painting need, And therefore to your fair no painting set； I found, or thought I found, you did exceed That barren tender of a poet's debt： And therefore have I slept in your report, That you yourself, being extant, well might show How far a modern quill¹ doth come too short, Speaking of worth, what worth in you doth grow. This silence for my sin you did impute², Which shall be most my glory being dumb； For I impair³ not beauty being mute, When others would give life, and bring a tomb. There lives more life in one of your fair eyes Than both your poets can in praise devise.