To the Painter.

FOnd man that hop'st to catch that face,
With those false colours, whose short grace
Serves but to shew the lookers on,
The faults of thy presumption.
Or at the least to let us see,
That is divine, but yet not shee…
Say you could imitate the rayes,
Of those eyes that out-shine the dayes,
Or counterseite in red and white,
That most vncounterfeited light
Osher complexion; yet canst thou,
(Great Master though thou be) tell ho…
To paint a vertue? Then desist,
This saire, your Artifice hath mist:
You should have markt how shee begins,
To grow in vertue, not in sinnes:
In stead of that same rosie die,
You should have drawne out modestie.
Whose beauty sits enthroned there,
And learne to looke and blush at …er.
Or can you colour just the same,
When vertue blushes or when shame:
When sicknes, and when innocence,
Shewes pale or white unto the sence?
Can such course varnish ere be sed,
To imitate her white and red?
This may doe well else-wherein Spaine,
Among those faces died in graine,
So you may thrive and what you doe,
Prove the best picture of the two.
Besides (if all I heare be true,)
'Tis taken ill by some that you
Should be so insolently vaine,
As to contrive all that rich gaine
Into one tablet, which alone
May teach us superstition;
Instructing our amazed eyes,
To admire and worship Imag'…ies,
Such as quickly might out shine
Some new Saint, wer't allow'd a shrine,
And turne each wandring looker on,
Into a new Pigmaleon.
Yet your Art cannot equalize,
This Picture in her lovers eyes.
His eyes the pencills are which limbe▪
Her truly, as her's coppy him,
His heart the Tablet which alone,
I… for that porctraite the tru'st stone▪
If you would a truer see,
Marke it in their posteritie:
And you shall read it truly there,
When the glad world shall see their Heire.