 | Edward Cracroft Lefroy: His Life and Poems
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XLVI
A PLEA FOR DELAY
Not yet! Not yet! I dare not let thee go,
Till, line for line, thy face indelible
Lies printed on my heart as on a shell
That gravers cut for pearl-intaglio.
For one brief hour you will not grudge, I know,
To let my spirit, painter-fashion, dwell
Amid thy fronting lineaments, and tell
All that she learns in moving to and fro.
Remember, it may never chance again,
In this dim world of fates lethiferal,
That I alive should meet thee living too,
With power to mark thy traits as now I do;
And lacking these, how would my soul retain
Thine image in the ways ethereal?
| Edward Cracroft Lefroy: His Life and Poems
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