TO HIS MISTRESS, DEPLORING THAT

Why did not Fate to me bequeath an Utterance Elizabethan?

It would have been delight to me

If natus ante 1603.

My stuff would not be soon forgotten

If I could write like Harry Wotton.

I wish that I could wield the pen

Like William Drummond of Hawthornden.

I would not fear the ticking clock

If I were Browne of Tavistock.

For blithe conceits I would not worry

If I were Raleigh, or the Earl of Surrey.

I wish ( I hope I am not silly? )

That I could juggle words like Lyly.

I envy many a lyric champion,

I. e., viz., e. g., Thomas Campion.

I creak my rhymes up like a derrick,

I ne'er will be a Robin Herrick.

My wits are dull as an old Barlow —

I wish that I were Christopher Marlowe.

In short, I'd like to be Philip Sidney,

Or some one else of that same kidney.

For if I were, my lady's looks

And all my lyric special pleading

Would be in all the future books,

And called, at college, Required Reading.