Classic Poem

The day is warm and fair;
The early summer air
Is resting in the overhanging trees,
And at our feet there lave
The undulating waves
That wash the shores and fret the sands of many azure seas.

Beneath this tangled bower
We've idled many an hour
And tossed away too many tender days —
I quite content in love
To watch your face above
The netted couch, in which you lie, that softly floats and sways.

Did young Apollo wear
A face than yours more fair,
More purely blonde, in beauty more complete?
Beloved, will not you
Unclose those eyes of blue
That hold my world and bless and curse the life they render sweet?

I wonder how you rest
So calmly, when my breast
Is tortured by the efforts that I make
To strangle love and keep
His ensign from my cheek,
To still the passion in my heart just for our friendship's sake.

But perfect calm still lies
Within your sleeping eyes,
O'erveiled by lids that soft betoken rest.
Your lips serenely close
In undisturbed repose,
Nor tremble with the gentle, peaceful heaving of your breast.

Ah! well it is for me
That you, sweet, cannot see
Within my heart so tyrannized by love.
Ah! well it is for you
My friendship you deem true,
Nor know how false the friend that bends your sleeping form above.

Some stranger far and lone,
By you unseen, unknown,
Could give you calmer fondness in my stead,
For I have drunk the wine
Distilled from Love's wild vine,
And reeling with its subtle fumes I strike our friendship dead.