Refusing You Immortality
If I should tell, unstinted,
Your beauty and your grace,
All future lads would whisper
Traditions of your face;
If I made public tumult
Your mirth, your queenly state,
Posterity would grumble
That it was born too late.
I will not frame your beauty
In bright undying phrase,
Nor blaze it as a legend
For unborn men to praise—
For why should future lovers
Be saddened and depressed?
Deluded, let them fancy
Their own girls loveliest!