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| Elegie XII. |
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| Not that in colour it was like thy hair, |
| Armelets of that thou maist still let me wear: |
| Nor that thy hand it oft embrac'd and kist, |
| For so it had that good, which oft I mist: |
| Nor for that silly old morality, |
| That as these links were knit, our loves should be: |
| Mourn I, that I thy sevenfold chain have lost: |
| Nor for the luck-sake; but the bitter cost. |
| O, shall twelve righteous Angels, which as yet |
| No leaven of vile soder did admit: |
| Nor yet by any way have straid or gone |
| From the first state of their Creation: |
| Angels, which heaven commanded to provide |
| All things to me, and be my faithful guide: |
| To gain new friends, t'appease old enemies: |
| To comfort my soul, when I lie or rise. |
| Shall these twelve innocents, by thy severe |
| Sentence (dread Judge) my sins great burden bear? |
| Shall they be damn'd, and in the furnace thrown, |
| And punisht for offences not their own? |
| They save not me, they do not ease my pains, |
| When in that hell they'are burnt and ty'd in chains: |
| Were they but Crowns of France, I cared not, |
| For, most of them, their natural Country rot |
| I think possesseth, they come here to us, |
| So pale, so lame, so lean, so ruinous; |
| And howsoe'r French Kings most Christian be, |
| Their Crowns are circumcis'd most Jewishly; |
| Or were they Spanish Stamps still travelling, |
| That are become as Catholique as their King,
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[CW: Those] |