TO A GIRL

By Frederic Manning

Thy face, which love renews ever with loveliness,

Is known and strange as earth, from night each dawn is new:

Stirred with such restless beauty

As water that wind shadoweth.

How may love snare thy soul, or know the ways thereof?

Subtile as flame it is, and secret as the dews:

Even thus closely folded

Love hath thee not, but followeth.

From change to change, nor surfeiteth his ecstasy

That from so brief a joy desireth new delight,

As tho’ the sweet life in thee

Were fugitive and bodiless.

Nay, love, in thee all change immortal is; nor dies,

Being the soul of thee that pastures on brief joy:

And this earth's shows mere seeming

In thy clear love's eternity.