Even as on some black background full of night 
And hollow storm in cloudy disarray, 
The forceful brush of some great master may 
More brilliantly evoke a higher light; 
So beautiful, so delicately white, 
So like a very metaphor of May, 
Your loveliness on my life's sombre grey 
In its perfection stands out doubly bright. 

And yet your beauty breeds a strange despair, 
And pang of yearning in the helpless heart; 
To shield you from time's fraying wear and tear, 
That from yourself yourself would wrench apart, 
How save you, fairest, but to set you where 
Mortality kills death in deathless art?