Classic Poem

Here, by your leave, upon this pitiful star
Where the clandestine worm shares our abode,
We shall enact no trivial episode;
We shall not be as other lovers are:
The passionate chronicle must be lifted far
From those who let the glowing dream corrode,
Rust in the rain as though it had never glowed,
Put the swift torch under an earthen jar.

O lovely minister of light, be quick
To fill the baffled eyes as you would pour
Oil in the lamp, renew the guttering wick,
And send its radiant summons through the door:
If we must be destroyed, let spilled flame pick
Catlike its purring way across the floor!