Ambarvalia/Burbidge/I Would
I WOULD.
Little it were (and that by me uncraved),
Though by the powerful magic of my pen
All time should own thy peerless beauty saved
For an eternal idol among men.
Something indeed it were, I justly own,
My passion to embroider on the hem
Of thy perfections—so to send it down
Futurity, appendent upon them.
For though a little thing, yet were it sweet
To testify that thou whose sovran sight
Should sum all human-kind kissing thy feet,
In me at least didst realise thy right.
But what I crave,—what day and night my heart
Cries for, with yearning not to be represt,
Is that all time should see, glassed in my art,
Thy image, as I bear it in my breast.
Beauty is common, and the triumph poor
That treads upon the sense, not on the will;
At best its empire partial and unsure,
For some men are born blind, and some see ill.
But to be peerless through a peerless soul,
Sending through flesh its pure transpicuous ray;
To wear, in mere completion of the whole,
The fairest form that ever bloomed in clay.
As this is truly greatness, so to live
Thus beyond death is glory truly read;
Mere admiration is but fugitive,
But Love is faithful, even to the dead.
Reflective Love, that to the thing approved
Transforms the approver;—this for thee I seek,
That the base world, regarding thee beloved,
May grow as thou art, lovely, pure and meek.
And such the love which thou I know must own,
Seen only—but conceived of—yet to be
Thy mere apparitor—but to bear thy crown,
Alas! is all too excellent for me.