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Flamma sine Fumo

or, poems without fictions. Hereunto are annexed the Causes, Symptoms, or Signes of several Diseases with their Cures, and also the diversity of Urines, with their Causes in Poetical measure. By R. W. [i.e. Rowland Watkyns]

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Upon a fair Gentlewoman, but ill qualified

Thus have I seen, thus did I often know
A filthy dunghil overlaid with snow.
Here a fair Object stands before your eyes,
Whose beauty a cold Hermite might surprise;
She looks like Heaven, where good Angels dwell,
Yet is within as dark, as black as Hell:
Thus many trees appear both sound, and green,
But at the heart they have been rotten seen:
The sweet composure of her face doth say,
She is an Angel, which assumes our clay;
But scan her ways unlawful, and uncivil,
And then you will proclaim her for a Devil:
Fair weather in her lovely face we find,
But clouds of sin in her deceitful mind.
To make her fair within, good Lord impart
Unto that comely face a gracious heart.