Uc's Sonnet

Though beautiful, I know your kind: a grace
in stride and conversation, a charm that blights
all guests. You smile, so well, and you watch fights
break out among the rash, stirred by your face.
All this is known, of course. I find this place
but idling: the young know what they want, they see
already without my aid. Your coterie
is staunch, decides here all that is the case.

But here I am, to sing of you yet more
because I love, though my too-familiar timbre
in me itches like a cracking bell
does hurt its maker, I still sing well
enough: your father keeps me on. With limber
voice I'll stay, I suppose my word I'll pour.