Classic Poem

OF LAURA COVERING HER EYES WITH HER HAND AGAINST HER GAZE

On that sweet face for which my sighs ascend
Mine eyes were fixed with fierce intensity,
When Love, to chastise such temerity,
Lifted her lovely hand — and made an end;
Lifted my heart, too — as might hook suspend
A fish, or as the lime the bird — so me:
For sense delights not in philosophy
And often will its own sweet death commend.
But of its object, then, my vision cheated,
As it were dreaming, forced an entrance soon,
Which, had it missed, its joy were incompleted:
Midway these rival glories in a swoon
My soul drowsed, by its novel bliss defeated,
Whose strange delicious light eclipsed the moon.