Classic Poem

FIRST .

O SPLENDID woman! when you see another
Bearing about deformity's keen thorn,
Withhold that added pain which makes me smother
This bitter cry, uprising from your scorn:

" Fool! Did I make this ugly, ill-built dwelling?
Do not I love all beauty more than thou?
Is not contempt within my own breast swelling
Sharper than that which mars thy fairness now?

" Ah! happy thought for such as I to cherish,
That Death's dark ruin yet must ravage thee;
He spoils indeed, when such as thou art perish,
But having naught, I grudge him naught of me! "

SECOND .

Was sight blessed ever with a fairer creature?
Her form and face made music for the eye,
And such her wondrous tenderness of feature,
That I, poor cripple, drew no envious sigh.

From out her beauty there was something stealing
Too high for common pity, far too deep;
As if her soul tried on my sick heart's feeling,
And could, to think I wore it ever, weep.

And then her face shone bright, as if beholding
Some signal glory for what Time denied;
For me, here cast in this misshapen moulding,
A tenfold beauty on the Other Side!