Page:Elizabethan sonnet-cycles.djvu/174

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XVIII

My love, I cannot thy rare beauties place
Under those forms which many writers use:
Some like to stones compare their mistress' face;
Some in the name of flowers do love abuse;
Some makes their love a goldsmith's shop to be,
Where orient pearls and precious stones abound;
In my conceit these far do disagree
The perfect praise of beauty forth to sound.
O Chloris, thou dost imitate thyself,
Self's imitating passeth precious stones,
Or all the eastern Indian golden pelf;
Thy red and white with purest fair atones;
Matchless for beauty nature hath thee framed,
Only unkind and cruel thou art named!