Classic Poem

Amorous of Laura's loveliness
the heavens rapt her to their high abode,
it ill befitting her pure light to shed
its radiancy on these unhappy vales,

or to the end that mortal men, deceived
by the perfection of her bodily frame,
should not imagine, in their wonderment
at so much beauty, theirs a blessed lot.

Born where the red veil of the orient
falls from the dawning of the roseate face,
she died where the deep sea, with avid zest,

gives sepulchre to its effulgency;
it being ordained her godlike flight should cast,
even as the Sun, a girdle round the world.