MADAM, SINCE your command inspires My willing heart with lyric fires, Though my composure owe its birth, Or to cold water, or dull earth, Wanting the active qualities That spritely fire and air comprise; Yet guided by that influence, I may with those defects dispense; And raptures no less winning vent Than the fam'd Thracian instrument; What, though old sullen Saturn lie Brooding on my nativity; So your bright eyes the clouds dispell, Which on my drooping fancy dwell! But stay, what glass have we so bright, To do your matchless beauty right? Nature but from her own disgrace Can add no lustre to that face; Not from her patterns can we find A form to represent your mind. The figures which this world invest Are images, in which exprest Some truer essences appear, Which not to sight subjected are. So you, fair Celia, inwardly Dissemble well the Deity, And counterfeit in flesh and skin The fineness of a Cherubin: But, fair one, if you must put on The order's Institution, Admitted to this Hierarchy, A guardian angel be to me. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SONNETS TO LAURA IN LIFE: 109 by PETRARCH VALENTINES TO MY MOTHER: 1880 by CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI A PRAYER by EDNA MAY APPLEGATE TO M. I. (2) by MATILDA BARBARA BETHAM-EDWARDS THE NIGHT JOURNEY OF A RIVER by WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT POEM, ADDRESSED TO COLLECTOR MITCHELL by ROBERT BURNS |