Classic Poem

WHEN your beauty appears,
In its graces and airs,
All bright as an angel new-dropt from the skies,
At distance I gaze, and am awed by my fears—
So strangely you dazzle my eyes!
But when without art
Your kind thoughts you impart,
When your love runs in blushes through every vein,
When it darts from your eyes, when it pants at your heart—
Then I know that you 're woman again.

“There 's a passion and pride
In our sex,” she replied:
“And thus (might I gratify both) I would do—
Still an angel appear to each lover beside,
But still be a woman for you.”