I care not to mark out where Beauty lies,
What nice distinction claims it for her own;
Some intuition says it never dies,
Born of young joy, by feeling larger grown:
’Twere easy, to cull out fine tints, deep shades,
To trick comparisons into the vain verse;
Digging the ground, with intellect’s keen spades,
To touch more nearly something which is worse:
O too close strainers of the priceless wine,
The essence flies with what ye deem the dregs!
The jewel’s blaze, less lustrous in the mine,
Commands, there, praise, which, capp’d on age, it begs:
One stroke of Nature, and of Truth outweighs
All similes and suits, bedizening lays.