To the E[arl] of D[oncaster], with Six Holy Sonnets

SEE, sir, how, as the sun’s hot masculine flame

Begets strange creatures on Nile’s dirty slime,

In me your fatherly yet lusty rhyme

—For these songs are their fruits—have wrought the same.

But though th’ engend’ring force from which they came

Be strong enough, and Nature doth admit

Seven to be born at once; I send as yet

But six; they say the seventh hath still some maim.

I choose your judgment, which the same degree

Doth with her sister, your invention, hold,

As fire these drossy rhymes to purify,

Or as elixir, to change them to gold.

You are that alchemist, which always had

Wit, whose one spark could make good things of bad.