Sonnet VII: From that illumined face, pure, mild, and sweet

From that illumined face, pure, mild, and sweet,
A living spirit in keen lightning flies;
And by perception of my eager eyes,
I feel it stays not till their orbs repeat
Its ardour; blandly on the track they meet,
Which my charmed spirit, winged with warmth, pursues,
Undone, and clamouring for the good it views:
When absent, Memory in her holy heat
Paints its passed beauty, till my soul will glow,
Thinking it real, and divinely stirred,
On tiptoe fly to its embrace, but meeting
Nought but repulse from its angelic foe,
Whose aspect guards the gate, it dies with beating
Its heart against it, like a captive bird.