Classic Poem

Keepe on your maske, and hide your eye,
For with beholding you I dye:
Your fatall beauty, Gorgon-like,
Dead with astonishment will strike;
Your piercing eyes if them I see
Are worse than basilisks to mee.


Shutt from mine eyes those hills of snowe,
Their melting valleys doe not showe;
Their azure paths lead to dispaire,
O vex me not, forbeare, forbeare;
For while I thus in torments dwell
The sight of heaven is worse than hell.


Your dayntie voyce and warbling breath
Sound like a sentence pass'd for death;
Your dangling tresses are become
Like instruments of finall doome.
O if an Angell torture so,
When life is done where shall I goe?