Let it not your wonder move, Less your laughter, that I love. Though I now write fifty years, I have had, and have, my peers; Poets, though divine, are men: Some have loved as old again. And it is not always face, Clothes, or fortune gives the grace, Or the feature, or the youth; But the language, and the truth, With the ardour and the passion, Gives the lover weight and fashion. If you will then read the story, First prepare you to be sorry That you never knew till now Either whom to love, or how; But be glad as soon with me, When you know that this is she, Of whose beauty it was sung, She shall make the old man young, Keep the middle age at stay, And let nothing high decay, Till she be the reason why All the world for love may die. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE CENTER OF GRAVITY by DAVID IGNATOW SONNET COMPOSED ON A JOURNEY HOMEWARD by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE TELL'S BIRTHPLACE by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE ON A TREE FALLEN ACROSS THE ROAD (TO HEAR US TALK) by ROBERT FROST A SONG FROM THE COPTIC by JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE THREE BLIND MICE by MOTHER GOOSE ANTHEM FOR DOOMED YOUTH by WILFRED OWEN |