IV
Reading edition
SOME hold it strange that love like thine and mine ’Twixt two in state so sunder’d should be bred, That he who did all worths in him combine, Birth, beauty, wit, wealth, me thus honourèd, Me, the poor motley, maim’d by Fortune’s spite, Sear’d and o’erworn with tyranny of time, Whose wit was but the wit to learn to write When thou, my Muse, inspir’dst my pupil rhyme. Thou wert the wide world’s pride, but I his scorn; His pattern thou, I his poor toy and tool; Whence therefore should that tender love be born ’Twixt Fortune’s minion thee, and me her fool? O know they not that all such outward things Hold lowest count in the soul’s reckonings?
