What pure mysterious alchemy
Doth beauty chaste as thine persuade
To sublimate its crude degree
In sweetest herbs of earth displayed!
Violet.
Stop, stop; I command thee! Thou art much too philosophical for a poet. I’m weary.
Ideal.
Thou didst halt me in the middle of my verse.
For I philosophy discern
In quivering lips, in liquid eyes,
In rounded neck, and cheeks that burn
Like rose-leaves ’neath the radiant skies;
In hair as golden as the sun
That wreathes the circling grove, and seems
As fine and delicately spun
As if ’twere woven of his beams.
Violet.
Thou’rt much too flattering for a spirit. Thou art not a cold spirit, but a warm one. Good spirits should be cold. Mend thy rhymes, or I will leave thee in thy prison.