Classic Poem

WHEREIN TO DEPICT HER VIRTUES IS FUTILE

She, for whose lovely inaccessible sake
I haunt the Sorga and the Arno spurn,
Knows how the palaces and pleasures turn
Bitter as gall, and how the heart will break.
Though I have yearned to paint her and to make
Her beauty known and deathless — and still yearn —
So that like me posterity may burn,
Her sweet face still eludes — the phrases ache.
All those familiar graces which in her
Were but the stars a prodigal sky repeats —
Of these I may perhaps some shadow dare;
But ah, her crucial essence always cheats
My frantic grasp — that light which filled the air;
The strength of art against a stone wall beats.