| William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Elizabethan Verse. 1907. | | | | Fairest, When by the Rules of Palmistry | | By William Browne (c. 1590–c. 1645) |
| | | FAIREST, when by the rules of palmistry | |
| You took my hand to try if you could guess | |
| By lines therein, if any wight there be | |
| Ordained to make me know some happiness; | |
| I wished that those characters could explain, | 5 |
| Whom I will never wrong with hope to win; | |
| Or that by them a copy might be ta’en, | |
| By you alone what thoughts I have within. | |
| But since the hand of Nature did not set— | |
| As providently loth to have it known— | 10 |
| The means to find that hidden alphabet, | |
| Mine eyes shall be th’ interpreters alone; | |
| By them conceive my thoughts, and tell me, fair, | |
| If now you see her, that doth love me there? | | | | |
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