To Mr R. W. (‘Kindly I envy’)

Kindly I envy thy song’s perfection
Built of all th’ elements as our bodies are:
That little of earth that’is in it, is a fair
Delicious garden where all sweets are sown.
In it is cherishing fire which dries in me
Grief which did drown me: and half quenched by it
Are satiric fires which urged me to have writ
In scorn of all: for now I admire thee.
And as air doth fulfil the hollowness
Of rotten walls; so it mine emptiness,
Where tossed and moved it did beget this sound
Which as a lame echo of thine doth rebound.
Oh, I was dead; but since thy song new life did give,
I recreated even by thy creature live.