Explore "Halt, O Faint Shared of My Elusive Love" by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Which restrains a fantasy by making it content with decent love
Halt, O faint shade of my elusive love, / image of the enchantment I love best, / fair illusion for whom I gladly die, / sweet fiction for whose sake I live in pain.
If th'attraction, the magnet of your charms / draws my heart as if it were made of steel, / why woo and win me over with flattery / if then you will deceive me, turn and flee?
But, satisfied and proud, you cannot boast / that your tyranny triumphs over me: / for though you escape and slip through the tight cords / that bind your imagined form in fantasy, / it matters not if you elude my arms, / my dear, when thought alone can imprison you.