The Undertaking

• I have done one braver thing
• Than all the Worthies did ;
• And yet a braver thence doth spring,
• Which is, to keep that hid.
•  
• It were but madness now to impart
• The skill of specular stone,
• When he, which can have learn'd the art
• To cut it, can find none.
•  
• So, if I now should utter this,
• Others—because no more
• Such stuff to work upon, there is—
• Would love but as before.
•  
• But he who loveliness within
• Hath found, all outward loathes,
• For he who color loves, and skin,
• Loves but their oldest clothes.
•  
• If, as I have, you also do
• Virtue in woman see,
• And dare love that, and say so too,
• And forget the He and She ;
•  
• And if this love, though placed so,
• From profane men you hide,
• Which will no faith on this bestow,
• Or, if they do, deride ;
•  
• Then you have done a braver thing
• Than all the Worthies did ;
• And a braver thence will spring,
• Which is, to keep that hid.