Fair friend, '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 free, 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 beauty takes my sense, And lest you should that price disdain, My thoughts, too, feel the 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 beauty's rate, Less were an injury. Like unstamped gold, I weigh each grace, So that you may collect The intrinsic value of your face, Safely from my respect. And this respect would merit love, Were not so fair a sight Payment enough; for, who dare move Reward for his delight? | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...WOMAN'S INCONSTANCY by ROBERT AYTON THE BOOK [OF THE WORLD] by WILLIAM DRUMMOND OF HAWTHORNDEN UP-HILL by CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI FLORAL DECORATIONS FOR BANANAS by WALLACE STEVENS THE SWORD by MICHAEL JOSEPH BARRY THE APOSTLE by PIERRE JEAN DE BERANGER |