When sable quill did trace thy visage fair,
And Night herself grew jealous of thy skin,
I knew thee not as muse, but masked despair,
Whose grace conceal’d a wilful shade within.
Thou art no shadow born of wanton lie,
Nor Venus’ slave, nor Egypt’s dusky queen,
But she whom Oxford’s eye did oft espy,
In Fleet’s dim court, where secrets wax unseen.
Thy name is Bess, a scrivener’s bold delight,
Thy hand, the map on which my verse was laid,
Thy wit, a dagger wrapt in laceéd white,
Thy smile, the debt for which my youth hath paid.
Yet I, poor Will, did don the Oxford cloak,
And lent thee fame by ink that none bespoke.