Careful Compliments

I have a friend who is really very beautiful. Though I often try to pay her compliments I am faced with two difficulties. One is that my compliments never seem fair enough. They always seem to be too weak in revealing just how very much I do admire her beauty. The second problem is that she does not appreciate being complimented. I don't know why. I suppose it's just for an awkward sense of embarrassment or some such thing. She really is beautiful though and deserves to be complimented daily for her beauty. But for her sake and because of our friendship I must hold my praise of her in check. Yet I wish she would understand as Edmund Waller understood when he wrote this Song...

Go, lovely rose--

Tell her that wastes her time and me,

That now she knows,

When I resemble her to thee,

How sweet and fair she seems to be.

Tell her that's young,

And shuns to have her graces spied,

That hadst thou sprung

In deserts where no men abide,

Thou must have uncommended died.

Small is the worth

Of beauty from the light retired:

Bid her come forth,

Suffer herself to be desired,

And not blush so to be admired.

Then die!-- that she

The common fate of all things rare

May read in thee;

How small a part of time they share

That are so wondrous sweet and fair!