To Alphonso Ferrabosco, on his Book

To urge, my loved Alphonso, that bold fame
Of building towns, and making wild beasts tame,
Which music had; or speak her own effects,
That she removeth cares, sadness ejects,
Declineth anger, persuades clemency,
Doth sweeten mirth, and heighten piety,
And is to a body, often, ill inclined,
No less a sovereign cure, than to the mind;
T' allege, that greatest men were not asham'd,
Of old, even by her practice to be fam'd;
To say indeed, she were the soul of heaven,
That the eighth sphere, no less than planets seven,
Moved by her order, and the ninth more high,
Including all, were thence call'd harmony;
I yet had utter'd nothing on thy part,
When these were but the praises of the art:
But when I have said, the proofs of all these be
Shed in thy songs; 'tis true: but short of thee.