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...THURSDAY by WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS THE IYYOB TRANSLATION FROM 'A-15' by LOUIS ZUKOFSKY KIT CARSON'S RIDE by CINCINNATUS HEINE MILLER GARDEN DAYS: 2. NEST EGGS by ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON TO THE WINDS by BERNARD BARTON |