Classic Poem

Fair friend, 'tis true, your beauties move
My heart to a respect:
Too little to be paid with love,
Too great for your neglect.

I neither love, nor yet am free,
For though the flame I find
Be not intense in the degree,
'Tis on the purest kind.

It little wants of love, but pain,
Your beauty takes my sense,
And lest you should that price disdain,
My thoughts, too, feel the influence.

'Tis not a passion's first access
Ready to multiply,
But like love's calmest state it is
Possessed with victory.

It is like love to truth reduced,
All the false values gone,
Which were created, and induced
By fond imagination.

'Tis either fancy, or 'tis fate,
To love you more than I;
I love you at your beauty's rate,
Less were an injury.

Like unstamped gold, I weigh each grace,
So that you may collect
The intrinsic value of your face,
Safely from my respect.

And this respect would merit love,
Were not so fair a sight
Payment enough; for, who dare move
Reward for his delight?