XLI

Yet why, of one who loved thee not, command

Thy counterfeit, for other men to see,

When God himself did on my heart for me

Thy face, like Christ's upon the napkin, brand?

O how much subtler than a painter's hand

Is love to render back the truth of thee!

My soul should be thy glass in time to be,

And in my thought thine effigy should stand.

Yet, lest the churlish critics of that age

Should flout my praise, and deem a lover's rage

Could gild a virtue and a grace exceed,

I bid thine image here confront my page,

That men may look upon thee as they read,

And cry: Such eyes a better poet need.