To Belinda

Oh, why do you draw me, irresistibly, Into all this magnificence? Was I not living happy, virtuously, In midnight’s solitariness? Quietly secluded in my chamber, In the moonlight I lay, Drowned in its shining shower, Into which I’d stray: Dreaming of hours, golden, filled With unmixed delight, Your sweet form now so distilled Deep within my mind. Can it be me that you imprison Among all these lights? Made to hold the insufferable vision Of faces forever in sight? The springtime blossom in the meadow Charms me less by far: Where you are, Angel, is Love, and Virtue, Nature is where you are.