Classic Poem

WHEREIN THE BEAUTY OF THE WORLD CAME AND WENT WITH LAURA

Amid a lovely thousand one I saw,
Whom seeing — and these shapes no fancy bred —
Instantly I was seized by amorous dread,
Then flamed with ardour, then was hushed with awe.
No fleck was in her, never mortal flaw,
No earthly happiness her hunger fed;
My soul, constrained to follow where she led,
Flinched at the blue pavilions of His law.
Alas, her sweep outsoared all wings, all cries,
And in a little space she sped from sight:
The very thought still finds me frozen numb.
O lovely, lofty, lucid windows — eyes
Where Death, who crowds the world with black affright,
Obtained an entrance to Elysium.