Sonnet: Oh, Beauty, passing beauty!

I
  Oh, Beauty, passing beauty! sweetest Sweet!
  How canst thou let me waste my youth in sighs?
  I only ask to sit beside thy feet.
  Thou knowest I dare not look into thine eyes,
  Might I but kiss thy hand! I dare not fold
  My arms about thee--scarcely dare to speak.
  And nothing seems to me so wild and bold,
  As with one kiss to touch thy blessed cheek.
  Methinks if I should kiss thee, no control
  Within the thrilling brain could keep afloat
  The subtle spirit. Even while I spoke,
  The bare word KISS hath made my inner soul
  To tremble like a lutestring, ere the note
  Hath melted in the silence that it broke.

II

Reprinted in 1872 among 'Early Sonnets' with two alterations, "If I were loved" for "But were I loved," and "tho'" for "though".

  But were I loved, as I desire to be,
  What is there in the great sphere of the earth,
  And range of evil between death and birth,
  That I should fear--if I were loved by thee?
  All the inner, all the outer world of pain
  Clear Love would pierce and cleave, if thou wert mine,
  As I have heard that, somewhere in the main,
  Fresh water-springs come up through bitter brine.
  'Twere joy, not fear, clasped hand in hand with thee,
  To wait for death--mute--careless of all ills,
  Apart upon a mountain, though the surge
  Of some new deluge from a thousand hills
  Flung leagues of roaring foam into the gorge
  Below us, as far on as eye could see.

• About Lord Alfred Tennyson