La bella Mora

Matchlesse thoughe blacke thou art, nature’s sweete error

Amongst loues fairest ones, the onely mirror

The morne is sweete fowle to thee : thine Ibonye

Staines the freshe scarlet, and the Iyorye

What clime or in what time hath euer beene

In ages past or present felt or seene

So bright a starr breake from so darke a cell

Or in a blacke coale so much heate to dwell

I am my loues slave her blacke bands are haue knit

My heart so fast noe white can* loosen it: [left margin: *shall

There where thou hadst thy birth, [the] sunne y^t place

Hath bred another sunne to thy disgrace

Mightier then thou who w^th her face doth sway

The gloomy night & with her eye y^e day

SOURCE: Houghton MS Eng 703, fol. 37v.