I grant thou wert not married to my Muse
And therefore mayst without attaint o’erlook
The dedicated words which writers use
Of their fair subject, blessing every book
Thou art as fair in knowledge as in hue,
Finding thy worth a limit past my praise,
And therefore art enforced to seek anew
Some fresher stamp of the time-bettering days
And do so, love; yet when they have devised
What strained touches rhetoric can lend,
Thou truly fair wert truly sympathized
In true plain words by thy true-telling friend;
And their gross painting might be better used
Where cheeks need blood; in thee it is abused.
The objections raised against the rival poet(s) continue. The youth is being misled by them, allowing himself to be flattered with the artificiality of rhetoric. Although he is commiting no crime (yet he did vow eternal exchange of hearts), perhaps he turns aside because he exceeds in beauty anything that may be captured by the pen of this writer, and his true worth requires that he seek abroad for other talents to depict him. Yet the poet fears that this is dangerous and corrupting, for the youth does not require flattery, or artificiality. He is himself so fair that he best suits the simple truth. Let him therefore leave these false and empty poets. They had better turn their attention instead to pale and sallow cheeks which need the hypocrisy of untruth to bolster their image.
Sonnet LXXXII
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