Classic Poem

TO ONE WHO MENTIONS LAURA

Whenever I hear you speak of her in those
Sweet tones which Love hath taught his votaries,
My flaming passions reach such ecstasies
As might from death restore the withered rose;
Wherever she was kind to me, there glows
The bright Madonna moving at her ease
With that demeanour which, my thought to tease,
Needed no sound but of my sighing woes.
I see her turning, looking, the gold hair
Outblown, her terrible beauty flooding back
Upon my heart whereof she is the warder;
But the soul's fierce delight makes utterance harder,
So that to paint her soul-enthroned I lack
The power to shape one word, the will to dare.