To what can I compare you?

You are no angel,

For it is your beauty that captivates me so,

And not a good heart

Nor generous personality.

Nor are you the sun—

You are not so perfect

As to bring life to this very planet.

Perhaps you are a rose—

Possessing a beauty that wants to be captured

Time and again

By painter, photographer, poet,

But also thorns that,

Upon getting to close,

Will prick, and draw blood.

Or better still

Perhaps you are but a statue—

Pure white marble,

Sculpted after the Greek gods themselves,

To be looked at,

To please the eye,

But never to touch

(oh, but for one touch)

and never to know.

Perfect winsomeness.

But what stone likeness

Can convey the very joy

That is your smile.

Just one look from you

Would tempt even Artemis,

The virgin goddess.

In allure,

You defeat the loveliest heroine

Of the great romances of the centuries.

Perhaps if I may compare you to the robes of the hypocrites—

Perhaps you are the most beautiful on the surface,

And tragically wicked within.

If it is so,

Condemn me to the second circle

All the same, for I will not,

Can not

Resist you.