MADAM, your beauty and your lovely parts Would scarce admit poetic praise and arts As they are love's most sharp and piercing darts; Though, as again they only wound and kill The more deprav'd affections of our will, You claim a right to commendation still. For as you can unto that height refine All love's delights, as while they do incline Unto no vice they so become divine, We may as well attain your excellence, As without help of any outward sense Would make us grow a pure intelligence. And as a soul, thus being quite abstract, Complies not properly with any act Which from its better being may detract, So through the virtuous habits you infuse, It is enough that we may like and choose, Without presuming yet to take or use. Thus angels in their starry orbs proceed Unto affection, without other need Than that they still on contemplation feed; Though, as they may unto this orb descend, You can, when you would so much lower bend, Give joys beyond what man can comprehend. Do not refuse then, madam, to appear, Since every radiant beam comes from your sphere Can so much more than any else endear, As while through them we do discern each grace, The multiplied lights from every place Will turn, and circle, with their rays, your face. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A SERMON AT CLEVEDON; GOOD FRIDAY by THOMAS EDWARD BROWN SNOWFLAKES by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW LINCOLN, THE MAN OF THE PEOPLE by EDWIN MARKHAM THE PHILOSOPHER TOAD by REBECCA S. REED NICHOLS WHEN SHE COMES HOME by JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY FRANCE; THE 18TH YEAR OF THESE STATES by WALT WHITMAN ANOTHER REAPER by WILLIAM H. ARMSTRONG III |