To Lucy, Countess of Bedford

Madam, I told you late, how I repented,
I ask'd a lord a buck, and he denied me;
And, ere I could ask you, I was prevented:
For your most noble offer had supplied me.
Straight went I home; and there, most like a poet,
I fancied to myself, what wine, what wit
I would have spent; how every muse should know it,
And Phoebus' self should be at eating it.
O, madam, if your grant did thus transfer me,
Make it your gift! See whither that will bear me.