A poem of you—too beautiful to hold

Or be imprisoned as a memory,

For then the essence of first wonders bold

Soon damn themselves with drab familiarity.

What shame to thus debase a beauty rare,

To simply have it at one’s beck and call

And drag it forth by rote in stale compare,

To court numb ears that gods could not enthrall.

Let sweetest words remain on parchment brown

Perchance to catch an eye yet rondel blind—

Or for my sight to simply view anon

And raise in poignancy, past thoughts to mind;

By seldom audit, not to dull the rhyme…

Delight in wonders of a song sublime.