MADAM, 'tis true, your beauties move My heart to a respect, Too little to be paid with love, Too great for your neglect: I neither love, nor yet am sure, For though the flame I find Be not intense in the degree, 'Tis of the purest kind: It little wants of love but pain, Your beauties take my sense, And lest you should that pride disdain My thoughts feel th' influence; 'Tis not a passion's first access Ready to multiply, But like love's calmest state it is Possessed with victory: It is, like love, to truth reduced, All the false values gone, Which were created and induced By fond imagination: 'Tis either fancy or 'tis fate To love you more than I, I love you at your beauties' rate, Less were an injury. Like unstamped gold I weigh each grate, So that you may collect Th' intrinsic value of your fate Safely from my respect: And this respect could merit love, Were not so fair a sight Payment enough, for who dares move Reward for his delight? | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE LOVE SONNETS OF PROTEUS: 60. FAREWELL TO JULIET (9) by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT THE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS by THOMAS MOORE THE SPIRIT OF NATURE by RICHARD REALF A CHRISTMAS CAROL (1) by CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI SONNETS ON PICTURES: MARY MAGDALEN AT THE DOOR OF SIMON THE PHARISEE by DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI THE BLESSED DAMOZEL by DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI THE HOUSE OF LIFE: 83. BARREN SPRING by DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI |