Later Sonnets: Friendship's Black and White

ROMANCE is writ for me with many names
Of fair loved faces, each page a design
Blazoned and tinctured, this with saffron flames
Enshrining fancy, that with opaline
Rays of mad hopes, half sunlight, half moonshine.
This last with the sole gold of passionate blames
Enjoyed and harvested and made divine
By Love's long memory far outlasting Fame's.
Leave it untouched, the rose-sweet mat
Youth lies asleep in it, its spellbound kin
Turn not the leaves lest he should wake di-n
This page alone stands open, unequipped
Of any hue save friendship's black and white,
Named with one name that need not be afraid.