How should I love my best? What though my love unto that height be grown, That taking joy in you alone I utterly this world detest, Should I not love it yet as th'only place Where Beauty hath his perfect grace, And is possest? But I beauties despise, You, universal beauty seem to me, Giving and shewing form and degree To all the rest, in your fair eyes, Yet should I not love them as parts whereon Your beauty, their perfection And top, doth rise? But ev'n my self I hate, So far my love is from the least delight That at my very self I spite, Sensless of any happy state, Yet may I not with justest reason fear How hating hers, I truly her Can celebrate? This unresolved still Although world, life, nay what is fair beside I cannot for your sake abide, Methinks I love not to my fill, Yet if a greater love you can devise, In loving you some otherwise, Believe't, I will. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TO COLE, THE PAINTER, DEPARTING FOR EUROPE by WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT CHANNEL FIRING by THOMAS HARDY SUNDAY MORNING by WALLACE STEVENS IN MEMORIAM A.H.H.: 22 by ALFRED TENNYSON THE BOY AND THE BROOK by LEO ALISHAN A POINT OF VIEW by LETITIA A. BRACE |