Sonnet Clxxxiv:

If sorry music on this lute were played, And someone told you, Cleopatra's skull Was fashioned to this chamber round and full, And this long neck of Helen's thigh was made; Each key was graven and each fret inlaid From bones of beauties, whose caress could lull The Grecian madman or the Tudor bull, And all these strings were Rosamond's golden braid; What were your profit, if the air I tried Halted and stammered from the precious strings, And in the ear of listless hearers died? I sometimes tremble, as these numbers glide, Lest I bemean my love, with paltry things, To bear a censure wholly on my side.