To Lucy, Countess of Bedford, with Master Donne's Satires

Lucy, you brightness of our sphere, who are,
Life of the Muses' day, their morning star!
If works, not authors, their own grace should look,
Whose poems would not wish to be your book?
But these, desired by you, the maker's ends
Crown with their own: Rare poems ask rare friends.
Yet satires, since the most of mankind be
Their unavoided subject, fewest see;
For none e'er took that pleasure in sin's sense,
But, when they heard it tax'd, took more offence.
They then, that living where the matter's bred,
Dare for these poems yet both ask, and read,
And like them too; must needfully, though few,
Be of the best, and 'mongst those best are you:
Lucy, you brightness of our sphere, who are
The Muses' evening, as their morning star!