An Elegy

Fair friend, 'tis true, your beauties move
My heart to a respect;
Too little to be paid with love,
Too great for your neglect.

I neither love, nor yet am free,
For though the flame I find
Be not intense in the degree,
'Tis of the purest kind.

It little wants of love but pain;
Your beauty takes my sense,
And lest you should that price disdain,
My thoughts too feel the influence.

'Tis not a passion's first access
Ready to multiply;
But like love's calmest state it is
Possest with victory.

It is like love to truth reduc'd,
All the false values gone,
Which were created, and induc'd
By fond imagination.

'Tis either fancy or 'tis fate,
To love you more than I:
I love you at your beauty's rate,
Less were an injury.

Like unstampt gold, I weigh each grace,
So that you may collect
Th' intrinsic value of your face,
Safely from my respect.

And this respect would merit love,
Were not so fair a sight
Payment enough; for who dares move
Reward for his delight?