TRUE love’s own talisman, which here <br />Shakespeare and Sidney failed to teach, <br />A steel-and-velvet Cavalier <br />Gave to our Saxon speech: <br /> <br />Chief miracle of theme and touch <br />That upstart enviers adore: <br />I could not love thee, dear, so much, <br />Loved I not Honour more. <br /> <br />No critic born since Charles was king <br />But sighed in smiling, as he read: <br />“Here ’s theft of the supremest thing <br />A poet might have said!” <br /> <br />Young knight and wit and beau, who won, <br />Mid war’s adventure, ladies’ praise, <br />Was ’t well of you, ere you had done, <br />To blight our modern bays? <br /> <br />O yet to you, whose random hand <br />Struck from the dark whole gems like these, <br />Archaic beauty, never planned <br />Nor reared by wan degrees, <br /> <br />Which leaves an artist poor, and art <br />An earldom richer all her years; <br />To you, dead on your shield apart, <br />Be “Ave!” passed in tears. <br /> <br />How shall this singing era spurn <br />Her master, and in lauds be loath? <br />Your worth, your work, bid us discern <br />Light exquisite in both. <br /> <br />’T was virtue’s breath inflamed your lyre, <br />Heroic from the heart it ran; <br />Nor for the shedding of such fire <br />Lives since a manlier man. <br /> <br />And till your strophe sweet and bold <br />So lovely aye, so lonely long, <br />Love’s self outdo, dear Lovelace! hold <br />The pinnacles of song.<br /><br />Louise Imogen Guiney<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-footnote-to-a-famous-lyric/
