part of it,
As either of her eye or lip or hand to write,
The light or black, the taste or red, the soft or white.

III

_Of the excellency of his lady's voice_

Lady of ladies, the delight alone
For which to heaven earth doth no envy bear;
Seeing and hearing thee, we see and hear
Such voice, such light, as never sung nor shone.
The want of heaven I grant yet we may moan,
Not for the pleasure of the angels there,
As though in face or voice they like thee were,
But that they many be, and thou but one.
The basest notes which from thy voice proceed,
The treble of the angels do exceed,
So that I fear their choir to beautify,
Lest thou to some in heaven shall sing and shine.
Lo, when I hear thee sing, the reason why
Sighs of my breast keep time with notes of thine!

IV

_Of her excellency both in singing and instruments_

Not that thy hand is soft, is sweet, is white,
Thy lips sweet roses, breast sweet lily is,
That love esteems these three the chiefest bliss
Which nature ever made for lips' delight;
But when these three to show their heavenly might
Such wonders do, devotion then for this
Commandeth us with humble zeal to kiss
Such things as work miracles in our sight.
A lute of senseless wood, by nature dumb,
Touched by thy hand doth speak divinely well;
And from thy lips and breast sweet tunes do come
To my dead heart, the which new life do give.
Of greater wonders heard we never tell
Than for the dumb to speak, the dead to live.

V

_Of the envy others bear to his lady for the former perfections_

When beauty to the world vouchsafes this bliss,
To show the one whose other there is not,
The whitest skins red blushing shame doth blot,
And in the reddest cheeks pale envy is.
The fair and foul come thus alike by this;
For when the sun hath our horizon got,
Venus herself doth shine no more, God wot,
Than the least star that takes the light from his.
The poor in beauty thus content remain
To see their jealous cause revenged in thee,
And their fair foes afflicted with like pain.
Lo, the clear proof of thy divinity;
For unto God is only due this praise
The highest to pluck down, the low to raise!

VI

_To his mistress, upon occasion of a Petrarch he gave her, showing her