Classic Poem

And yet think not that I desire to seal
Your earthly beauty from the eyes of praise,
The Soul I worship hath its holy-days,
But being God is manifestly real.
The flesh resplendent in a lover's gaze
Hath too its triumph; the divine ideal
Is dual and can wonderfully reveal
Itself in dust enriched by subtle ways.

You are no shadow, for in you combine
Earth-music and a spirit's sanctity,
And both are exquisite, and both are mine...
For holier men a Beatrice, for me
The joyous sense of your reality,
Not half so saintly,--but far more divine.